As the country facing an acute shortage of vaccine doses, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday said that the government’s focus at present on domestic demand and it wouldn’t be fair to take about the supply of jabs abroad.

MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi also informed that the Central government is engaged with the American vaccine manufacturers (for COVID vaccines)  and are also separately engaged with the United States government for raw materials. 

India is trying to procure vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to ramp up its vaccine supply and meet an ambitious target of inoculating its entire adult population by the end of December this year. “We are currently also purposing domestic vaccine production for our own vaccination program,” the MEA spokesperson said.

MEA on travel restrictions on Indians

While talking about the travel restrictions imposed by several nations due to the recent COVID spike in the country, Bagchi said the government expect countries to ease travel restrictions on Indians as the situation normalises, some countries have started, more should follow.

“We have also helped expedite the introduction of Sputnik-V vaccines,” ANI quoted Bagchi as saying. Reacting to the US government’s vow to give millions of doses of COVID vaccine till June end, the MEA spokesperson said that India is awaiting further details on the matter.

Earlier today, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said there may be a slight demand-supply imbalance in vaccines during June-July but from August onwards, there will be an adequate number of doses available.

“From then on, we should be able to vaccinate everybody in India properly and that should help us,” he said, amid a shortage of vaccine in various states.