The US lauded India’s “incredible vaccine manufacturing capacity”, acknowledging India’s role on the global front in supplying vaccines against COVID-19.
The United States has lauded India’s “incredible vaccine manufacturing capacity”, acknowledging the important role of the country on the global front in supplying vaccines against COVID-19.
Addressing a press briefing on Tuesday, the US COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr Ashish Jha said, “Because of its (India’s) incredible manufacturing capacity, it has been a major exporter of vaccines.” Jha was responding to a question on QUAD (a grouping of the US, Japan, Australia and India) cooperation with India in manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines.
“Quad partnership is really important — certainly important to this administration. And I think, you know, India is an important manufacturer of vaccines for the world — I mean, not just for India itself. It’s a really important thing,” Dr Jha told reporters.
It is pertinent to mention that under the PM Modi-led initiative– Vaccine Maitri initiative of the Indian government, more than 250 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been supplied to over 100 countries.
India’s impact on world stage increased with donation of vaccines during COVID: UN Chief
Earlier in October, during his visit to India, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asserted that India’s impact on the international stage increased when India donated COVID-19 vaccines to nations that didn’t receive them from the rich and developed nations.
“From your donations of equipment, medicine and vaccines at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, to your humanitarian assistance and development finance to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, you are increasing your impact on the international stage,” Guterres had said.
It is pertinent to mention that Bhutan and Nepal, in September, expressed gratitude and appreciation for India at the UN General Assembly for its “heartwarming goodwill” and “valuable support” in the supply of COVID-19 vaccines under New Delhi’s ‘Vaccine Maitri initiative’ that enabled the neighbouring countries to vaccinate their populations as the pandemic raged across the world.
“Our campaign to vaccinate our population has been recognised as an unlikely success story, and today, more than 90 per cent of our entire population stands fully vaccinated. This, in no small measure, was possible due to the heart-warming goodwill of friends and partners, including India, whose Vaccine Maitri initiative enabled the full first round of vaccinations for our adult population,” Bhutan’s Foreign Minister had said from the UNGA podium.
Nepal’s Foreign Secretary Bharat Raj Paudyal also expressed appreciation in his address to the General Assembly for the vaccines provided to his country by India.
