Afghanistan received a large consignment of COVID-19 vaccines from India on Sunday. A special Indian aircraft carrying 500,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine from Mumbai reached Kabul, where officials of Afghanistan’s Health Ministry took charge of the consignment. The India-made vaccine is the first to reach Afghanistan as the country battles the pandemic.
“Made in India vaccines reach Afghanistan. (We) stand with our friends, always,” External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar said in a social media message after the vaccines arrived in Afghanistan. The vaccine, made by the Serum Institute of India, has already been supplied to Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and the Maldives in South Asia.
Ghulam Dastagir Nazari, head of the immunisation programme at the Health Ministry in Kabul, said the vaccines will be kept in storage till the country receives emergency approval from the World Health Organization (WHO). “The [WHO] certification is underway and hopefully, it will be done in a week and we will start the vaccination process in all 34 provinces,” Mr. Nazari said, according news agency Reuters.
India has already carried out capacity building workshops with Afghan health workers and the Afghan health authorities are expected to be ready to deliver vaccination shots to priority groups soon. Afghanistan is sourcing vaccines for COVID-19 from multiple countries. Apart from the India-made vaccines, Kabul is expected to receive a large number of Chinese vaccines for COVID-19.
“This will profoundly strengthen our efforts to tackle the spread of COVID-19. I express my deepest gratitude to our Indian allies for this timely, vital, initiative, exemplifying unique bond,” said Tahir Qadiry, Charge d'Affaires of the Embassy of Afghanistan in India after Kabul received the Indian shots.
According to Afghanistan’s Health Ministry, the country has so far witnessed 55,335 COVID-19 cases leading to 2,410 deaths.