In Antananarivo, Madagascar, workers are loading boxes of COVID-19 vaccine for Covax.
MAMYRAEL/AFP via Getty Images
Two sources told Reuters that India’s resumption of the supply of Covid-19 vaccine to the global Covax vaccine sharing platform after 8 months was postponed on Monday when Nepal requested a postponement.
One of the sources, an official from the Ministry of Health of Nepal, said that the Serological Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, was originally scheduled to ship Covishield doses of vaccine to Nepal via Covax on Monday, but the country now only hopes in November. Ship them around the 29th.
He refused to explain the reason for the delay. Neither source wants to be named before the delivery of the vaccine, and it is expected that there will be hundreds of thousands of doses.
A spokesperson for the Nepal Ministry of Health did not immediately comment. The licensed version of SII’s AstraZeneca vaccine is called Covishield and did not respond to a request for comment.
The last time SII supplied Covax to Covax was in mid-April, when India stopped all vaccine exports to meet its own needs due to a surge in infections. The company reached an agreement with Covax to sell hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine to Covax, which distributes vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.
Prior to the implementation of the ban, as part of the Indian government’s vaccine funding program, SII sent a total of approximately 20 million doses of Covishield vaccine to various countries through Covax.
After a surge in domestic production, India sent about 4 million doses of vaccine to its friends and neighboring countries bilaterally last month. SII’s Covishield production has almost quadrupled from April levels to 240 million doses per month.
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