US Vice President Kamala Harris has told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the US would send Covid19 vaccines to India.
Harris confirmed the decision during her conversation with Prime Minister Modi.
Prime Minister has thanked for the support from the US government.
The virtual conversation took place as US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that India would receive Covid19 vaccines directly from the US stockpile, the White House said.
PM Modi has also thanked the Indian diaspora for the decision of the US government.
“Spoke to @VP Kamala Harris a short while ago. I deeply appreciate the assurance of vaccine supplies to India as part of the US Strategy for Global Vaccine Sharing. I also thanked her for the all the support and solidarity from the US government, businesses and Indian diaspora,” PM Modi tweeted on Thursday night.
PM Modi said they also discussed the ongoing efforts to further strengthen the India-US vaccine cooperation.
“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,” PM Modi tweeted.
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the first details of the US sending 80 million COVID19 vaccines to India and other countries with the aim of “ending the pandemic globally”.
Spoke to @VP Kamala Harris a short while ago. I deeply appreciate the assurance of vaccine supplies to India as part of the US Strategy for Global Vaccine Sharing. I also thanked her for the all the support and solidarity from the US government, businesses and Indian diaspora.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 3, 2021
The US administration has been under pressure to provide other nations, severely hit by Covid19 pandemic, with some of its abundant supply, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a White House briefing.
Sullivan said some of the initial doses would go to India, Gaza and the West Bank and other nations and areas he said were “facing crises”.
The donations would be “surplus” from the supply the US needs and would include the FDA-approved Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, but not the Astra Zeneca vaccine, White House Coronavirus Response coordinator Jeff Zients said.
“Today, we’re providing more detail on how we will allocate the first 25 million of those vaccines to lay the ground for increased global coverage and to address real and potential surges, high burdens of disease, and the needs of the most vulnerable countries,” US President Biden said in a statement.
“At least 75 percent of these doses—nearly 19 million—will be shared through COVAX, including approximately 6 million doses for Latin America and the Caribbean, approximately 7 million for South and Southeast Asia, and approximately 5 million for Africa, working in coordination with the African Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.”
“The remaining doses, just over 6 million, will be shared directly with countries experiencing surges, those in crisis, and other partners and neighbors, including Canada, Mexico, India, and the Republic of Korea,” Biden further said.