India gifts COVID-19 vaccine to Sri Lanka |
India is proving it is the big brother and neighbour in need for countries immediately around in South Asia. The Indian government has announced a `gift` of COVID-19 vaccines to Sri Lanka to be dispatched on 27th January 2021. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has confirmed that the vaccine will reach on that date. Sri Lanka gets 500,000 doses of "made-in-India" Covishield vaccine. Sri Lanka becomes the eighth nation to receive India`s gift of COVID-19 vaccines since India started the world`s biggest immunization progamm with a country-wide drive on January 16. India is gifting vaccines to seven countries in the region as part of its neighbourhood first policy. These include Bhutan with 150,000 doses, Maldives with 100,000 doses, Nepal with1 million doses, Bangladesh with 2 million doses, Myanmar with 1.5 million doses, Seychelles with 50,000 doses, while Mauritius was gifted 100,000 COVID-19 doses. India was awaiting regulatory approval from Sri Lankan and Afghan authorities. The Sri Lanka`s drugs regulatory body — National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) gave a go ahead to Oxford Astrazeneca`s vaccine on 22nd January. The first jabs in Sri Lanka are expected to be given to health care workers. Colombo is expected to later procure more India manufactured vaccines on a commercial basis. Sri Lankan Healthcare Personnel were among the those from 13 countries who India trained a week ago.
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