The United States Vice President Kamala Harris has told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the US will ship Covid-19 vaccines to India at the earliest. Following their telephonic conversation, PM Modi thanked the VP for US government’s support and the India diaspora.
In what appears as their first conversation, the leaders also discussed Covid-19 pandemic situation in their resepective countries.
The development comes after the US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that India will receive Covid vaccines directly from the US stockpile.
Modi tweeted, “I deeply appreciate the assurance of vaccine supplies to India as part of the US Strategy for Global Vaccine Sharing. I also thanked her (Harris) for all the support and solidarity from the US government, businesses and Indian diaspora.”
“We also discussed ongoing efforts to further strengthen India-US vaccine cooperation, and the potential of our partnership to contribute to post-Covid global health and economic recovery,” he said in another tweet.
Meanwhile, Biden had announced that he will release the first set of 25 million doses of which six million doses each will be shared between India, South Korea, Mexico and Canada.
The Biden-Harris administration’s framework looks to share at least 80 million vaccines globally by the end of June.
“The Vice President reiterated that the Administration’s efforts are focused on achieving broad global coverage, responding to surges and other urgent situations and public health needs, and helping as many countries as possible who requested vaccines,” Senior Advisor and Chief Spokesperson Symone Sanders said in a statement on Thursday on Vice President Harris’s calls with foreign leaders on the Global Allocation Plan for the first 25 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
