New Delhi: India is offering a helping hand to different countries fighting the Covid-19 pandemic with medicines as well as medical professionals, while simultaneously dealing with the crisis at the domestic front. India is in the process of exporting 285 million tablets of anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to 40 countries on a commercial basis, while it will gift 5 million tablets to many countries to help them fight the Covid-19 pandemic. HCQ, notably, has emerged as an effective medicine to treat the coronavirus. Also, commercial consignments of around 500 million tablets of paracetamol (PCM), also useful in treatment of Covid-19 patients, have also been cleared for 60 countries.
Besides, India has gifted 5 million HCQ tablets to countries in the neighbourhood and also Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, Eurasia and WANA (Western Asia and North Africa) regions. India is also providing 1.32 million PCM tablets to the neighbouring and other partner countries. The entire exercise is being coordinated by the Ministry of External Affairs, headed by S. Jaishankar.
Among neighbouring countries, India has sent HCQ to Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Mynamar. Other countries where India is supplying HCQ include France, Netherlands, Egypt, Nigeria, Oman, Zambia, Dominican Republic, Madagascar, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Congo, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Equador, Jamaica, Syria, Ukraine, Chad, Zimbabwe, Jordan, Kenya and Peru.
As reported earlier, India is the largest producer and exporter of the drug. Initially, the government banned its exports, but the rules were eased thereafter to allow export of HCQ and paracetamol after meeting all the domestic requirements.
As reported earlier, India is the largest producer and exporter of the drug. Initially, the government banned its exports, but the rules were eased thereafter to allow export of HCQ and paracetamol after meeting all the domestic requirements.
An MEA official said that apart from HCQ and PCM, India is also providing a big basket of other medical aid which includes essential drugs and life-saving antibiotics, medical consumable and other equipment for laboratories and hospitals. According to him, the value of the total medicines and other supplies to be gifted by India stands at Rs 383 million (about $5 million).
India has also responded promptly to requests for deployment of Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) comprising doctors, nurses and paramedics. These RRTs are ready for deployment at short notice and have so far been deployed in Maldives and Kuwait at the request of their governments. These RRTs have helped train and exchange best practices with local medical professionals on various aspects of dealing with the pandemic.
India will soon have enough rapid testing kits to go in for large-scale community testing of the virus, with a South Korean firm starting production at Manesar.
Through coordination with agencies concerned in India, arrangements were enabled whereby the Indian subsidiary of a South Korean company has commenced production of Covid-19 rapid anti-body testing kits in its plant at Manesar, Haryana, with a capacity of 5 lakh tests per week.
He said the first batch has already rolled out. “This is an excellent example of our ‘Make in India for world’,” the official said.
He also said the Indian Mission has also signed a contract on behalf of the ICMR with another South Korean company to procure and supply 5 lakh corona testing kits.
This is to be noted that 11 empowered groups have been set up for an integrated approach to deal with the pandemic.
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