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26-09-2021
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: A top foreign ministry official said Saturday India will export eight million COVID-19 vaccine jabs by the end of October after ending its ban on sending doses abroad.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to resume exports at a meeting of leaders from the so-called Quad in Washington as India, Japan, Australia, and the US try to counter growing Chinese influence across the Asia-Pacific region.
Foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told reporters on Saturday that most of the eight million doses of the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine will be sent to Asia-Pacific countries.
“This would be ready by the end of October. This is an immediate delivery, from the Quad into the Indo-Pacific region,” Shringla told reporters.
India is one of the world’s biggest vaccine producers and had pledged earlier this year to export one billion COVID-19 jabs by December 2022 but New Delhi halted exports in May after a devastating coronavirus wave ravaged the country.
India lifted its vaccine export ban this week with new COVID-19 infections and deaths slowing down.
The country suffered weeks of vaccine shortages as a coronavirus surge between March and May killed at least 250,000 and infected tens of millions of people.
It has now administered nearly 840 million vaccine doses; nearly half of the adult population has had at least one jab and with 16% receiving a second dose.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will allow fellow leaders of the Quad Partnership to export 8 million COVID-19 vaccines by the end of October, in line with an agreement signed by groups in Australia, India, Japan and the United States, the Indian Foreign Minister said on Friday.
India, the world’s largest producer of vaccines, will supply 1 billion COVID-19 shots to Asia by the end of 2022 after banning exports in April in the midst of a large domestic COVID outbreak. The plans that Quad achieved earlier this year have come to a dead end.
India’s Foreign Minister Hirsch Baldan Schlingla to reporters, Modi to fellow quad leaders at a summit meeting in Washington on Friday, India to make 8 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine available, he said he would do it.
“This will be ready by the end of October”, “compatible with our decision to export vaccines. The quad pays for the vaccines and India bears a certain percentage of them. This will be immediate delivery from the quads in the Indo-Pacific”, he said.
India expects to get its first Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine doses from next month, filled and finished in India by a partner of the U.S. drug-maker, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Monday.
It could receive as many as 43.5 million doses of the single-shot vaccine in October, said the source, a big step towards helping India meet its target of producing more than 300 million doses in the month.
India is the world’s biggest centre of vaccine manufacturing. Once it has met its own needs, it plans to resume exports, which it stopped in April.
India’s drug regulator last month gave emergency authorization to the J&J vaccine, whether imported or locally filled and finished by J&J’s Indian partner, Biological E.
However, the Indian government has not yet signed any supply deal with J&J.
