Sustainable recovery from Covid should begin with vaccines: India at UN

Emphasising that following the emergence of the Omicron variant, India had immediately offered support including supplying made vaccines to the affected countries in Africa, India at the UN said that sustainable recovery from the pandemic should start with vaccines.

"Following the emergence of the Omicron variant, India had immediately offered support to the affected countries in Africa, including by supplying made-in-India vaccines, essential life-saving drugs and medical equipment," said India's Permanent Representative to UN TS Tirumurti during a joint PBC-ECOSOC meeting on 'promoting durable peace and sustainable development in the context of recovery from COVID-19 pandemic'.

"If we need to have any sustainable recovery from the pandemic, it should start with vaccines," he added.

Stressing to ramp up the production capacity of vaccines, the Ambassador said that it is essential that global supply chains of raw materials be kept open.

Tirumurti also emphasised human-centric and citizen-friendly digital tech saying these need to be promoted with a special focus on women and youth.

His focus on vaccines come at a time COVID-19 cases are again in the surge in many parts of the world due to coronavirus' new variant Omicron, which WHO said could be the cause of the increase in infections and hospitalisations in the near future.