India: To tackle the global pandemic Indian government on Saturday sent-off 175,000 Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine doses to 5 Caribbean countries, including four under the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Official Indian government sources revealed that the successful procurement and delivery of Covishield vaccine is made possible by Gurdip (Dev) Bath, Special representative of St Kitts and Nevis, who played a bridge between the government of India & OECS countries.
These vaccines dispatched from the Indian financial capital Mumbai would most likely reach Antigua & Barbuda on Monday; further transportation arrangements have been made to deliver the vaccine to respective countries.
As per the External Ministry of India sources, St Lucia will get 25,000 jabs of Covishield vaccine and St Kitts and Nevis 20,000, St Vincent and the Grenadines 40,000 Antigua and Barbuda 40,000, Republic of Suriname 50,000 respectively.
In this accession process of vaccines, the chairman of OECS, Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit, played a key role in the procurement of Vaccines from India.
From the time when this global pandemic started, being the head of OECS, Skerrit performed his role efficiently, helping sister nations to fight against the coronavirus .
PM Roosevelt Skerrit acting as OECS chairman, had written to the Indian government seeking vaccines for respective countries to safeguard their front-line workers and other vulnerable community in the country.
Though the Republic of Suriname is not part of OECS, it also gets 50k jabs of vaccines as OECS chairmen Roosevelt Skerrit thinks about humanity first. He even shared some of the vaccines with different CARICOM member countries, including St Lucia and Suriname.
In the queue of 92 other countries looking for help from India to manage vaccines against noble coronavirus, The Commonwealth of Dominica & Barbados had successfully received around 70,000 and 100,000 Covishield jabs from India, respectively.
The worthwhile endeavor efforts of Gurdip Dev bath made the vaccine viable to the Caribbean countries. Notably, earlier, he also made Covishield vaccine accessible to the Commonwealth of Dominica & Barbados.
India is producing the world’s most significant number of coronavirus vaccines; apart from its own requirements, the world’s second-most populous nation is attempting to make the vaccine available to all countries apart from their size and strength.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Business and Diaspora Relations of Dominica petitioned the Government of India to secure extra Covid-19 vaccine doses for their sister countries, more specifically those under the OECS inter-governmental organization.
As per GOI sources, Oxford vaccines have left from Mumbai in Hawker 850 XP aircraft, and it would reach Antigua & Barbuda by Monday morning.
As a consequence of that, the vaccination drive in the Caribbean countries is at its peak.
