India will resume COVID vaccine exports to neighboring COVAX | Coronavirus pandemic news

The Minister of Health stated that the government will give priority to the global vaccine sharing platform and India’s neighboring countries.

The Minister of Health of India stated that India will resume the export of COVID-19 vaccines from the next quarter. With the increase in supply, first priority will be given to the global vaccine sharing platform COVAX and neighboring countries.

India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, stopped the export of COVID vaccine in April in order to focus on vaccinating its population in the event of an infection outbreak.

Health Minister Manzuk Mandavia said that the country’s monthly vaccine production has more than doubled and will quadruple next month to more than 300 million doses, adding that only surplus vaccines will be exported.

“We will help other countries and fulfill our responsibilities to COVAX,” he told reporters on Monday.

The media reported last week that India is considering restarting the export of COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible. Before exports ceased, it donated or sold 66 million doses of vaccine to nearly 100 countries.

Before announcing the resumption of exports, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the United States this week, when the leaders of the United States, India, Japan and Australia may discuss vaccine issues at the summit.

India hopes to vaccinate all of its 944 million adults by December. So far, 64% of them have been vaccinated with at least one dose and 22% have been vaccinated with two doses.

Since last month, the number of vaccinations in India has increased, especially because the Serological Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has more than tripled the production of AstraZeneca vaccines from April levels to 2 per month. Billion doses.

Indian companies have established the capacity to produce nearly 3 billion doses of COVID vaccine each year.

On Monday, India reported 30,256 new COVID-19 infections and 295 deaths, bringing the total number of cases to 33.48 million and the death toll to 445,133.