Following spike in Covid-19 cases, India temporarily stops export of vaccines

NEW DELHI: In a bid to focus on domestic immunization, India will not expand export of vaccines for next few months, said reports.

With the rise in the COVID-19 infections in several states the demand for vaccines has arisen in the country, hence there will be no expansion of vaccine exports.

However, as per reports, all commercial contracts and export commitments will be honoured and India will continue to help countries around the world to deal with the pandemic.

So far, India has supplied 60.4 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to around 80 countries.

Reports further suggest that the supplies to other countries will be followed up by India only after meeting the domestic needs.

As of now, there will be no exports for the next few months and the situation will be reviewed after around 2 to 3 months as the country ramps up its vaccine production.

India started supplying the vaccine doses to foreign countries on January 20.

Recently, the Government has announced that people who are of 45-years and above are eligible to get vaccinates from April 1. The vaccination drive in the country has been ramped up as the COVID-19 cases have increased in many states.

The daily count of Covid-19 cases in India have crossed the 50,000 mark for the first time since November 6. On Wednesday, 53,476 new infections were detected, of which Maharashtra reported 31,855, a new peak for the state. Mumbai and Pune have both set new records for daily cases. Punjab, second-highest state with covid cases, reported 2,613 new infections. Active cases rise by more than 26,000 in a day, the highest record since the outbreak of the virus. There are total 3.95 lakh active cases in the country and 251 deaths reported on Thursday.

According to the Ministry of Health a new "double mutant" variant of COVID-19 was also detected in the country

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