E-Paper
PM Modi speaks to Justin Trudeau, says India would do its best to facilitate supplies of Covid vaccines to Canada
The development comes in the wake of India clearing the supply of 24 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to 25 countries on a commercial basis in February.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi late on Wednesday said that he received a call from his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau where the two leaders spoke about vaccine for coronavirus disease and other important issues.
"Was happy to receive a call from my friend @JustinTrudeau. Assured him that India would do its best to facilitate supplies of COVID vaccines sought by Canada. We also agreed to continue collaborating on other important issues like Climate Change and the global economic recovery," PM Modi tweeted.
The development comes in the wake of India clearing the supply of 24 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to 25 countries on a commercial basis in February. This is more than than twice the 10.5 million vaccines that were exported in January, according to people familiar with the development.
However, Canada was not included in the list of countries who will receive the vaccines from India, they added. Canada has sought 1 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
The country has registered nearly 813,000 coronavirus cases till now of which 20,984 have died while 753,386 people have recovered. PM Trudeau had said on Tuesday that the government will step up its fight against the pandemic by obliging citizens returning home overland from the United States to show they do not have Covid-19, according to Reuters.
"Everyone arriving by air already has to prove they tested negative within the previous 72 hours and this rule is being expanded to land crossings starting on February 15", he added.
