The President of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly Abdulla Shahid has said that he received two doses of the made-in-India Covishield vaccine which has been delivered to a "large portion" of countries.
Developed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, Covishield has been at the forefront of battling the dreaded Covid-19 virus. In India, it has been manufactured and exported across the world by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII).
Indian news service PTI quoted Shahid from his first press conference. as saying: "On vaccines, that's a very technical question you have asked me. I got Covishield from India, I've got the two doses. I don't know how many countries would say that Covishield is acceptable or not, but a large portion of the countries have got Covishield".
He was responding to a media query on whether multiple Covid vaccines should be recognised or only the ones validated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) or any other group should be accorded recognition.
For India, Shahid's remarks come at a time when it is locked in a battle with the British government over vaccination and quarantine issues for travelers. The UK has imposed travel restrictions over Indians even if they have been inoculated with both doses of India-developed Covaxin and India-made Covidshield.
Also, India has been exporting both vaccines steadily across the world, including the WHO's Covax facility, initiating the process with its neighbourhood. The neighbourhood included Maldives–the home country of the UNGA president.
The new British rules ask fully vaccinated Indians to undergo a 10-day quarantine. In retaliation, India has decided to impose similar rules for British nationals arriving in India after a series of talks could not resolve the issue.
Shahid plans to convene a high-level meeting of the UNGA in January 2022 to take stock of the global vaccination effort, saying that listening to world leaders at the recently concluded live UNGA leadership, "has been most positive from the United States, from China, from India, from many, many corners of the world, from the vaccine producers themselves".
