India can make 5 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that India had the capacity to produce five billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccines this year with four WHO-approved vaccines being manufactured in the country.

The PM said India had supplied 200 million doses of the vaccine to 98 countries, bilaterally and through COVAX.
India had fully vaccinated almost 90% of the adult population and more than 50 million children, he said.

Speaking at the second Global Virtual Covid Summit, PM Modi called for WTO rules, particularly TRIPS to be more flexible. He also called for streamlining the WHO’s approval process for vaccines and therapeutics to keep the supply chain stable and predictable. “WHO must be reformed and strengthened to build a more resilient global health security architecture,” the PM said.

The PM urged for a coordinated global response to combat future health emergencies and to build a resilient global supply chain to enable equitable access to vaccines and medicines.

Modi said India had developed low-cost Covid mitigation technologies for testing, treating, data management and offered these capabilities to other countries.

India’s Genomics Consortium had made significant contributions to the global database on the virus and would extend this network to countries in the neighborhood, he said.

Source link

Leave a comment