The Caandian Bazaar
TORONTO: The first consignment of half a million doses of Covishield vaccines from India landed in Toronto on Wednesday.
A commercial cargo flight brought the vaccines after Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured Trudeau during a telephonic talk last month to deliver the doses. India will supply 2 million vaccines to Canada by May under a deal signed between the Serum Institute of India and
“Very early this morning, our first half a million doses of Atsrazeneca vaccine from the Serum Institute of India arrived in Canada,” said Trudeau in his morning media briefing.
Indian High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria and Federal Minister of Public Services and Procurement Anita Anand received the consignment at the Innomar warehouse in Toronto.
Indo-Canadian Minister Anand leads Canadian efforts to procure vaccines and played a key role in concluding the deal with the Serum Institute.
High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria congratulated Verity CEO, Mr. Howard Glase, on this pioneering deal and said,
“India is proud to support Canada’s vaccination program. With more than 60 percent of global vaccine manufacturing capacity, India believes in vaccine internationalism and is providing a healing hand as the world recovers from this deadly pandemic,†said the Indian High Commissioner.
Bisaria said the supply of vaccines reflected the strategic partnership between India and Canada.
A statement put out by the Indian High commission said India has balanced domestic requirements of vaccines with overseas commitments as the country has so far provided vaccine doses to more than 40 other countries as part of its Vaccine Maitri initiative. The country has already vaccinated 16 million people, setting the target to cover 270 million people by July.
2 million doses have been extended this week. All will be vaccinated by September.
The AZ/CoviShield vaccine is now in ??. The first tranche of 500k doses arrived this morning from @SerumInstIndia with 1.5 million more doses to follow. Thank you to all whose hard work made this happen. We look forward to future collaboration. ?? pic.twitter.com/OL4s0vlcdU
— Anita Anand (@AnitaOakville) March 3, 2021
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