UN chief says India’s vaccine-manufacturing capability is best aid world has today

NEW DELHI: Encouraging India to play an important role in the global vaccination campaign, Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), on Thursday, January 28, called India’s vaccine production capacity as the “best asset” that the world has today.

Guterres said that he knows that in India, there is a high level of production of Indian developed vaccines. UN is in contact with Indian institutions for that. He said that he strongly hopes that India will have all the instruments that are necessary to play a major role in ensuring that a global immunisation campaign is made possible.

On need to democratise permission to medicine, Guterres said that he appeals once again for licenses to be made available in order for companies around the world to be able to produce some vaccines that exist.

Guterres’ statement comes after India has gifted around 55 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine to neighbouring countries. Talking at a weekly briefing, Anurag Srivastava, Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, on Thursday, January 28, said India plans to gift vaccine doses to Oman, the Caribbean Community countries, Nicaragua, Pacific Island states. Srivastava added that New Delhi plans to supply 1 crore or 10 million vaccine doses to Africa and 10 lakh to United Nations health workers under Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation’s COVAX facility. India, Srivastava further said, intends to commercially export COVID-19 vaccine to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Canada, Mongolia and other countries.