India is conscious of the responsibility it has being the biggest vaccine maker in the world

Canada is set to receive two million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from India. The first package of 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines produced by the Serum Institute of India is expected to be delivered in a day’s time, said High Commissioner of India to Canada Ajay Bisaria.

In an interview with BNN Bloomberg, Bisaria said, “In a phone call, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a request to Prime Minister Modi to avail of the vaccines from India. And India was happy to readily agree and tomorrow we will have in Toronto landing 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines produced by the Serum Institute of India as a part of a 2 million doses contract. We are delighted that this is happening.”

This comes as a part of India’s commitment to vaccinate internationalism.

“We are conscious of the responsibility we have being the biggest vaccine maker in the world and conscious of a very global responsibility, very clearly attributed to that we need to be a part of it,” Bisaria said.

“India is the vaccine maker of the world. It used to be the pharmacy of the world but it is also now the vaccine maker of the world. We have 62 percent of the global capacity. We have six vaccines that are at various stages of development in India. We have tremendous capacity and going forward there are possibilities of doing more deals and getting more vaccines out there. India has already put out 14 million doses for about 40 odd countries, friends and neighbors. This process will continue,” he added.

Speaking about any further contracts to be signed between the two sides on vaccines delivery, Bisaria said, “India Canada partnership is a strong strategic partnership, not of recent vintage. Prime Minister Modi was here in 2015 and we have a relationship based on a strong economic engagement. There is investment in India from Canada. That is the headline of the economic engagement. The portfolio investment in India has gone up from 5 billion dollars to more than 50 billion dollars now.”

“So, there will be issues that will be discussed candidly between the two sides always as they were on the 10th of February. Prime Minister Trudeau commended India for the way it was holding dialogues with protesting farmers based on democratic principles. So, I think these are two strong strategic partners and there is no reason to worry about the flow of global supply chains being respected when contracts are signed,” he added.