India starts commercial export of vaccines

On Friday, India will commence the commercial export of vaccines against COVID-19. The first two of such batches will be going to Morocco and Brazil. Brazil is currently the world’s third-largest coronavirus epidemic affected nation. Two million doses of vaccines each will be dispatched to the two countries.

“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 ie ups in this field,” foreign secretary Harsh Shringla said. “There’s huge international demand for our vaccines,” it added.

So far, these vaccines have been manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. AstraZeneca has joined hands with SII to make at least one billion doses of their shot. Some of the countries that will be the recipients of these vaccines are Saudi Arabia and South Africa.