1st Vaccine Shipment From India Under The COVAX To Roll Out This Week: WHO Scientist

Coax Vaccine Shipment to start this week; learn more…

Tuesday, 23rd February 2021

The first vaccine shipment from the country under COVAX, the global strategy to ensure an equitable as well as rapid access to the coronavirus vaccines for all the nations is very likely to set out this week, said Soumya Swaminathan, Chief scientist of WHO on this Monday.

"Not in the next couple of months. This week. (I think) today or tomorrow, the first shipment from India, from the Serum Institute, will be going out to at least 25 or 30 countries and then we hope that this will be followed by the vaccines also that are being manufactured in India. Many countries around the world are waiting for the distribution to happen as they have been watching vaccination programs beginning and scaling in high-income countries, while their own healthcare workers and other vulnerable groups are still waiting," said she in a statement delivered during a virtual panel meet.

This was her reply to a question asked to her. She was asked whether WHO would initiate rolling out of the COVAX Vaccine facility to the other countries officially in the next few months.

The panel meets on ''Immunizing the World'' was organized during ''BioAsia-2021'', the flagship yearly life sciences function of the Telangana government. The part enacted by India needs to be marked and India has aptly responded to the demands of the times, expanding its massive manufacturing aptitude, she stated.

Informing that an "amazing" Research and Development is further taking place in the country with a huge range of new products in the clinical trials, and she expected that success will be obtained in that respect too.

When questioned about what do the countries need to do to rise over the pandemic, Swaminathan replied that unity, solidarity, and global collaboration are the requisites.

"Because, it's clear that a pandemic cannot be addressed on a country-by-country or a region-by-region basis," she stated.

The News Talkie Bureau

Source:

NDTV