India dispatches COVID-19 vaccines to Barbados, Dominica

India on Sunday dispatched two consignments of Covishield COVID-19 vaccines to the countries of Barbados and Dominica under the Vaccine Maitri initiative.

The consignments of vaccines, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) departed from Mumbai at 11:35 pm yesterday.

India had earlier provided Barbados with Covishield vaccines, for which the country's Prime Minister Mia Mottley has expressed her gratitude to the Indian government and the people for the "most generous" donation of COVID-19 vaccine doses.

In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, Mottley said: "I trust that you are well and safe. On behalf of my Government and people, I wish to express gratitude to you, your Government and the people of the Republic of India for its most generous donation of the Covishield vaccines (under the auspices of Oxford Astrazeneca)."

Recently, Barbados media had reported that the country will be receiving 1,00,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines from India.

Barbados, with a population of over 2.87 lakhs, has recorded 1,641 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 1,274 persons have recovered.

Last month, Srivastava said New Delhi plans to supply 1 crore or 10 million vaccine doses to Africa and 10 lakh to United Nations health workers under GAVI's (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) COVAX facility.

Srivastava said that India plans to commercially export coronavirus vaccine to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Canada, Mongolia and other countries.

( With inputs from ANI )