NEW DELHI, Feb 23 (Reuters) - India will on Tuesday make its
first shipment of a locally made COVID-19 shot to the WHO-backed
equitable vaccine distribution network COVAX, the government
said.
"Fulfilling our commitment to help the world with COVID-19
vaccines, supplies of Made-in-India vaccine commence today for
Africa under COVAX facility," Anurag Srivastava, spokesman for
the Ministry of External Affairs, said on Twitter.
The World Health Organization this month paved the way for
the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine's global
roll-out by approving emergency use of the product produced by
the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine
maker, and SK Bioscience of South Korea.
SII will also soon start producing the Novavax
vaccine mainly for poor and middle-income countries.
India, the world's biggest maker of vaccines, has shipped
over 17 million vaccine doses to more than two dozen countries -
including around 6 million as gifts to partners such as
Bangladesh and Nepal. For its own campaign, New Delhi has so far
only ordered 31 million doses.
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
Astrazeneca (AZN)
