India will export eight million doses of the coronavirus vaccine by the end of October, after lifting its ban on sending doses abroad, a senior foreign ministry official said on Saturday. .
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the pledge at a summit with leaders of the United States, Japan and Australia - "
the quadrangle
" of the Pacific region - in Washington on Friday.
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Most of the vaccines will go to nations in the Asia-Pacific region, where those countries seek to counter China's growing influence, Foreign Minister Harsh Vardhan Shringla said in a video press conference.
Modi said India will provide eight million doses of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine, which is manufactured under license by Indian company Biological-E, Harsh Vardhan Shringla said.
“
This vaccine will be ready by the end of October.
This is immediate delivery, from the quadrangle to the Indo-Pacific region,
”Shringla told reporters.
Export ban
India ended its vaccine export ban this week, as new infections and deaths have declined dramatically and India's immunization program has accelerated.
One of the world's largest pharmaceutical producers, India had said this year it would supply one billion doses of Covid-19 to other countries by December 2022, before halting exports in May, victim of a devastating coronavirus wave.
The country faced weeks of vaccine shortages as the epidemic surged between March and May, which infected tens of millions of people and killed at least 250,000.
The country has now administered nearly 840 million doses of the vaccine.
Some 47% of the adult population have received at least one vaccine and 16% have received two.
