MEA clears 24 mn vaccine doses to 25 nations by Feb

New Delhi: In a 'Big Brother' move, India has approved the supply of about 24 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to 25 countries by the end of February.

According to MEA officials, the total doses of vaccine to be exported are about 24 million, out of which 16.7 million doses have already been supplied to 20 countries, including Sri Lanka, Bahrain and Oman, Barbados, Dominica, Bhutan, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, etc.

Interestingly, as of now, Canada is not in the list of the countries which are supposed to get the 'Made in India' vaccine, the officials concerned with the development said. Notably, Canada had recently requested for 1 million doses of the vaccine.

According to External Affairs minister S Jaishankar, there are three categories of countries that are keen to get the vaccine from India. The minister had recently added that some poor countries are being supplied the vaccine on a grant basis while some nations wanted it on par with the price that the Indian government pays to the vaccine makers.

Some countries have direct contracts with the Indian vaccine producing companies and have negotiated commercially, he had said.

The cumulative number of healthcare and frontline workers vaccinated against Covid has reached 68.26 lakh on Wednesday. As per the Health ministry's release, a total of 68,26,898 beneficiaries were vaccinated through 1,42,455 sessions till 6 pm, which includes 56,65,172 (57.4 per cent) healthcare workers and 11,61,726 (13.2 per cent) frontline workers.

India on Wednesday vaccinated a total of 2,15,133 beneficiaries through 7,707 sessions held till 6 pm on the 26th day of the drive.

With 11,067 new Covid cases and 13,087 recoveries in the last 24 hours, the new cases take the cumulative count of people infected with the virus in the country to 1,08,58,371, including 1,41,511 active cases and 1,05,61,608 recoveries. With 94 deaths registered in the last 24 hours, the total number of deaths now stands at 1,55,252.