Only a day after a fire broke at the Serum Institute of India facility in Pune, various consignments of the Oxford-developed Covishield vaccine has been put into transportation to be exported to Myanmar, Seychelles, and Mauritius.
Five labourers had died as a result of a fire that broke out at the Serum Institute of India’s (SII) site yesterday, damaging equipment worth several crores at the facility. However, SII CEO Adar Poonawalla assured that the facility where the vaccine was actually located a km away from the site where the fire had broken out.
A consignment of approximately 1.5 million doses of Covishield vaccine took off for Yangon in Myanmar early morning today at 6:40 am.
Another consignment of 50,000 doses of Covishield vaccine has taken off to Seychelles as part of India’s vaccine donation programme. Seychelles is a very small island nation in the Indian Ocean with a population of mere 1 lakh people, the sent 50,000 doses will be able to vaccinate 25% of the population.
After a request was received to the Indian Government by the Mauritius Government, it will be receiving a consignment of 100,000 doses of Covishield vaccine. Mauritius has a population of fewer than 1.3 million inhabitants and is highly dependent on external trade and tourism and hospitality industry which has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs had announced a vaccine donation drive for the economically smaller neighbouring countries as a part of its ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’.
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