Canada thanks India for sending 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines

Canada on Wednesday (local time) thanked India for sending coronavirus vaccines, of which 500,000 doses reached on March 4, a week after the AstraZeneca vaccine was approved.

ta Anand, MP for Oakville and Minister of Public Services and Procurement, said in a tweet, "The AZ/CoviShield vaccine is now in Canada. The first tranche of 500,000 doses arrived this morning from Serum Institute of India with 1.5 million more doses to follow. Thank you to all whose hard work made this happen. We look forward to future collaboration."

She had earlier said that another 944,600 doses of COVID-19 vaccines will be reaching Canada this week, of which 444,600 doses are of Pfizer and 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca.

While lauding the efforts made by Anand and her team to procure the coronavirus vaccines, Jennifer O'Connell, MP for Pickering-Uxbridge, said, "This is incredible work - AstraZeneca was approved this past Friday and thanks to Minister ta, her team and the many others involved, 5 days later we have received 500,000 doses with 1.5 million more on the way! We're now set to receive more than 6.5M doses by the end of March!"

Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month spoke to his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau and assured that India will do its best to support Canada's COVID-19 vaccination efforts.

Expressing his appreciation, the Canadian Prime Minister said that if the world managed to conquer COVID-19, "it would be significantly because of India's tremendous pharmaceutical capacity, and Prime Minister Modi's leadership in sharing this capacity with the world".The Prime Minister thanked PM Trudeau for his sentiments.

Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India earlier this month said that "Dear Hon'ble PM @JustinTrudeau, I thank you for your warm words towards India and its vaccine industry. As we await regulatory approvals from Canada, I assure you, @SerumInstIndia will fly out #COVISHIELD to Canada in less than a month; I'm on it!"

( With inputs from ANI )