NEW DELHI, Feb 2: India’s “vaccine maîtri” (Friendship through Covid vaccine) initiative went one step forward with vaccine in made in India landing in Dubai on Tuesday afternoon. External affairs minister S Jaishankar tweeted the news with pictures of the Air India flight that carried the vaccine to Dubai.
India so far has exported vaccines to several countries including sending gifts of vaccine packages to its immediate neighbours except Pakistan under the government’s “neighbourhood first” policy to strengthen bilateral relations with various countries.
Meanwhile, the union health ministry on Tuesday said India’s Covid-19 recovery rate had reached 97 per cent, one of the highest in the world. Vaccination is underway and as of Tuesday 39.5 lakh beneficiaries have been vaccinated, according to the health ministry.
India on Tuesday reported 8,635 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours. The nationwide tally currently stands at 10,766,245. Active cases continued to witness a steady decline and dropped to 1,63,353. The number of people who recovered from Covid-19 now stands at 10,448,406. The number of fresh fatalities recorded in the said period is 94, which pushes the death toll to 1,54,486.
Health ministry said as of Monday 37,58,843 beneficiaries have been inoculated against Covid-19, the health ministry said. On Monday, finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman had announced allocation of Rs.35,000 crore for Covid-19 vaccines. The finance minister also announced that a new centrally sponsored scheme, Prime Minister Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana, will be launched with an outlay of about 64,180 crore over six years.
(Manas Dasgupta)