US Lends Support : India will be a “significant recipient” of US vaccines- Taranjit Singh Sandhu , India’s Ambassador To US

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India will be a “significant recipient” of US vaccines, the country’s envoy India’s Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu has said as President Joe Biden announced details of his administration’s decision to send 25 million COVID-19 shots to countries across the globe.

US President Joe Biden had earlier announced that the US will allocate 75 per cent – nearly 1.9 crore of the first tranche of 2.5 crore doses – of unused COVID-19 vaccines from its stockpile through the UN-backed COVAX global vaccine sharing programme to countries in South and Southeast Asia as well as Africa.

The move is part of his administration’s framework for sharing 80 million (8 crore) vaccines globally by the end of June.

According to a White House fact sheet, nearly 19 million vaccines will be shared through COVAX.

Of these approximately six million for South and Central America to the following countries: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Haiti, and other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries, as well as the Dominican Republic.

Approximately seven million for Asia to the following countries: India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Maldives, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, and the Pacific Islands, it said.

India will be a significant recipient of US vaccines as India has been included in both the identified categories in the allocation announced today- direct supply to neighbours and partner countries, and under the COVAX initiative, India’s Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, told PTI.