Vaccine Maitri initiative: Made in India coronavirus jabs reach Jamaica

As part of its Vaccine Maitri initiative aimed to assist countries in their fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the Made-in-India vaccines reached Jamaica on Monday (local time).

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in a tweet, "Caring for our Caribbean friends. Made in India vaccines have reached Jamaica."

Last week, India had dispatched 175,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to other Caribbean countries -- Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenadines and Suriname.

Hours after receiving 40,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Alfonso Browne thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for demonstrating an "act of benevolence, kindness and empathy" by sending 175,000 AstraZeneca vaccines to the Caribbean countries.

Twenty-five nations across the world have already received Made-in India vaccines and forty-nine more countries will be supplied in the coming days, ranging from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa, South-East Asia and the Pacific Islands.