Clarification on COVID-19 vaccines from India to Caribbean

Dear Editor,
Media reports indicating that Barbados donated 3000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca COVISHIELD vaccine to Guyana have come to the notice of the High Commission of India.
The High Commission desires to clarify that the donation from Barbados to Guyana is actually Barbados sharing 3000 doses from the 100,000 doses it received from the Government of India as a gift on 11th February 2021.
Recently, India also gifted 175,000 doses of Made in India COVID-19 vaccine – COVISHIELD – for the benefit of several CARICOM countries, Antigua and Barbuda (40,000 doses), St. Kitts and Nevis (20,000 doses), St. Lucia (25,000 doses), St. Vincent and Grenadines (40,000 doses) and Suriname (50,000 doses) which is part of an overall 500,000 vaccine donation to the CARICOM region. This is done as we undertake the world’s largest vaccination drive back home, having inoculated close to 30 million, including health and front-line workers and those over 60 years of age.
The vaccine consignments to the countries in the Caribbean Region are part of India’s larger effort, named ‘Vaccine Maitri’ or ‘Vaccine Friendship’, under which India has so far shipped 58 million doses of vaccines to 71 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa. The recipient countries include even UK, Canada, Brazil and Mexico.
Both Covishield and Covaxin have been exported so far – some in the form of “gifts”, others in line with commercial agreements signed between the vaccine makers and the recipient nations, and the rest under the Covax scheme, which is led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and hopes to deliver more than two billion doses to people in 190 countries in less than a year.
In the coming days, India will supply vaccines to more countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, South-East Asia and the Pacific Islands.
We request you to put it (the point in the first para) in the right perspective through your newspaper/publication.

Sincerely,
High Commission of India
Georgetown, Guyana