Indian govt to receive 300 million vaccines in October, says Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya
KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 20
India is all set to resume the export of surplus COVID-19 vaccines under the 'Vaccine Maitri' program.
Addressing the media on Monday, India's Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya stated that the government is expected to receive over 30 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines in October and over 100 crore doses in the following three months.
"However, vaccinating the Indian populace still remains government's top most priority," the Indian health minister stressed.
Mandaviya said the export of surplus vaccines would begin in the next quarter (October-December) under the Vaccine Maitri program.
Due to overwhelming cases of the COVID-19 infections that India witnessed during the catastrophic second wave of the pandemic, the country had halted the exports of COVID-19 vaccines in April to focus on vaccinating its own nationals.
Earlier, India had provided Nepal with one million doses of the Astrazeneca Covishield vaccines free of cost after which Nepal had kicked off its vaccination campaign on January 27.
Later, Nepal struck a deal with the Indian vaccine manufacturer Serum Inistitute of India (SII) to acquire 2 million doses of the COVISHIELD vaccine, of which first consignment of one million dosage has been received by Nepal.
Nepal has already made an advanced payment of 80 percent while the remainig payment was to be rolled out post complete delivery. However, as India barred the export of vaccines in April in addition to failure by SII to deliver the quantity, Nepal is yet to receive one million dosage of the vaccines.
With the Indian government's announcement to resume the export of vaccines, Nepal can now finally expect the delivery of remaining purchased vaccines .
