The Indian government has cleared Serum Institute of India (SII) to export 1 million Covishield doses to Bangladesh.
The vaccine maker also got the nod to export Covishields to Nepal and Myanmar, PTI reported on Thursday citing official sources.
India’s Bharat Biotech will provide Iran with doses of its Covaxin jabs underit 'Vaccine Maitri' scheme, it said.
"While 1 million doses of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin would be sent to Iran, Serum Institute of India will export 1 million doses of Covishield each to Myanmar, Nepal and Bangladesh under the 'Vaccine Maitri' programme in October," an official source told PTI.
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Serum has been allowed to supply bulk Covishield, equivalent to around 30 million doses, to AstraZeneca this month, added the official.
According to the PTI report, Prakash Kumar Singh, director (government and regulatory affairs) at SII had sought permission from Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in August to supply bulk concentrated solution of Covishield to AstraZeneca citing contractual obligation with the UK-based firm.
"We believe in the ideology of 'nation first' and because of this, fulfilling the vaccine requirement of our country has been our top most priority during Covid-19 pandemic.
"We believe in the clarion call of 'vocal for local' given by our prime minister and we are continuously working on this to make our country Atmanirbhar Bharat," the source quoted Singh as having communicated.
File photo of a man reacts as he receives a dose of the Covishield vaccine | ReutersOn September 20, Indian health minister announced that the country will resume export of surplus Covid-19 vaccines in the fourth quarter of 2021 under the 'Vaccine Maitri' programme and to meet its commitment to the Covax global pool.
Serum Institute has enhanced its manufacturing capacity of Covishield to more than 200 million doses per month and has informed the Centre that it will be able to supply around 220 million doses in October, says the PTI report.
SII assured that they will complete the supply of 660 million doses of the vaccine by December 31 and will touch supplies of more than 1.3 billion doses in the year 2021.
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Covishied has been developed by SII in collaboration with Oxford University and AstraZeneca under technology transfer.
Covaxin has been indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
India, India, the world's biggest maker of vaccines overall, stopped vaccine exports in April to focus on inoculating its own population as infections exploded.
Now that the country has partly immunized a majority of its adults and supplies have surged, it is set to resume vaccine exports.