After Brazil, Mexico has become the second Latin American country that will be getting an India-made vaccine to inoculate its frontline workers amid the surging Covid-19 pandemic in the country.
Mexico will be importing about 870,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from India in February, Mexican President Andres Manuel Loapez Obrdor said on Friday.
India, which has emerged as the “pharmacy to the world” in the war against Covid-19, had dispatched two million doses of the same Pune-made vaccine to Brazil on Jan 22. This has enabled the Latin American country to kick off its inoculation drive at a time when its Covid-19 death toll has crossed 214,000 which is the second highest in the world after the US.
Mexico, which has been averaging over 16,000 fresh Covid-19 cases every day and has lost 1.55 lakh lives to the pandemic, also has an agreement with UK pharma giant AstraZeneca to produce the vaccine but this is expected to take more time.
After gifting its neighbours such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka vaccines to start their inoculation drives, India is also exporting part of its stocks to help friendly countries combat the dreaded coronavirus.
India has also exported three million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to Saudi Arabia in a reinforcement of its extended neighbourhood doctrine. All this is happening at a time when India has also launched the world’s biggest vaccination campaign within the country.
As many as 92 countries, across the globe have so approached India for Covid-19 vaccines. While currently two India-made vaccines have been approved for use there are another 12 in the pipeline some of which such as Russia’s Sputnik V and Novavax of the US are expected to be cleared very soon for use.
World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has thanked India for its "continued support" in the war against the Covid-19 pandemic. Interestingly, the praise comes at time when the WHO has criticised the advanced countries for not making vaccines available to the developing nations.
India has stepped up production on a war footing at a time when there is an acute shortage of vaccines worldwide. Even the Europe Union is facing a shortfall in the availability of vaccines which has slowed down its inoculation campaign.
“India, the vaccine hub of the world is now stepping into the next level of not only becoming part of a manufacturing supply chain but also a candidate for world class R&D. There’s a huge international demand for our vaccines,” Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla said in an interview to a TV channel.
“We expect to see more global players cooperating with their Indian counterparts in the pharma and healthcare sectors. This is likely to go beyond shifting parts of supply chains to India. We expect to see collaborations, manufacturing and R&D tie ups in this field,” headded.
