India began its ‘Vaccine Maitri’ to supply Covid vaccine to different nations almost a one-and-a-half-month ago. The country has delivered around 45.6 million doses of ‘Made in India’ Covid vaccines to 45 countries during the period.

Following requests from various countries for the supply of Indian-manufactured vaccines, the government had started the supply of Covid vaccine on January 20 to Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles under the grant assistance.

 

Then the External Affairs Ministry had stated that this is being done in keeping with India’s stated commitment to using India’s vaccine production and delivery capacity to help all of the human fight the Covid pandemic.

Of the 45.6 million doses, 38.47 million doses were commercial supplies and 7.12 million doses were granted to other countries.

Neighbouring Bangladesh is the major recipient of Covid vaccines from India till now. India supplied around 9 million doses of Covid vaccines to Bangladesh. Of this, 7 million doses were commercial supplies. Bangladesh got 2 million doses of vaccines as grant assistance on January 21. This was followed by additional 5 million and 2 million doses of commercial supplies on January 25 and February 22, respectively.

Morocco was the second major recipient during the period. India made commercial supplies of 2 million, 4 million and 1 million doses of the vaccine to that country on January 22, February 11 and February 24, respectively.

Brazil, one of the worst-hit countries by the Covid pandemic, also received around 4 million doses of commercial supplies from India during January and February. The Brazilian President Jair M Bolsonaro took to Twitter on January 22 to thank India with a tweet with a picture of Hanuman carrying a mountain of Covid vaccine from India to Brazil.

In that tweet, Bolsonaro said: “Namaskar, Prime Minister @narendramodi

Brazil feels honoured to have a great partner to overcome a global obstacle by joining efforts.

Thank you for assisting us with the vaccines exports from India to Brazil.

Dhanyavaad! धनयवाद”

While announcing the gift of 200,000 doses to UN Peacekeepers while speaking at the United Nations Security Council discussions on Covid vaccines, S Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister, had suggested the need to stop ‘vaccine nationalism’, urged the need to promote internationalism, and had asked to ensure equitable distribution of the vaccine.

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