'Expressing our Amistad', says Jaishankar as 'Made in India' COVID-19 vaccines reach Mexico
Feb 14, 2021
Mexico City [Mexico], February 14 : Mexico has received a consignment of 'Made-in-India' coronavirus vaccine, announced External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday.
"Expressing our Amistad. Mexico receives Made in India vaccines," tweeted Jaishankar.
Yesterday, Indian Ambassador Manpreet Vohra said that 870,000 Made-in-India vaccines will reach here on Sunday morning. The doses were requested by Mexico.
"To meet #Mexico's special request to #India for additional doses, huge efforts made by Minister @DrSJaishankar to help quickly. Now 870,000 Made-in-India vaccines will reach here on Sunday morning," he tweeted.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at a news conference on Wednesday informed that the country would receive around a million doses of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine sent from India in the early hours of Sunday.
AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccines are being manufactured in India by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
Mexico began its vaccination drive against the coronavirus in late December. The pandemic has killed more than 171,000 people in Mexico, the third-highest death toll in the world.
Mexico's vaccination rollout started on December 23. It was the first Latin American nation to receive a vaccine shipment. But the campaign has since stalled amid mismanagement and a global shortage in vaccine production, according to Al Jazeera.
Mexico's health ministry said that the country has received 766,350 doses of the two-dose regimen Pfizer vaccine, well short of the 34.4 million it was expecting to arrive in weekly shipments by March.
India has supplied a total of 229.7 lakh doses of coronavirus vaccine to the global community as of Friday, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).