DH NEWSDH Latest NewsLatest NewsDiseases & RemediesIndiaNEWSInternationalHealth

Ever heard of the tiny country St Lucia Island? – Know the Indian connection

Saint Lucia is a tiny island country in the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean.It covers a land area of 617 km2 (238 square miles) and reported a population of 165,595 in the 2010 census.The island capital is Castries.To put things into perspective,India’s smallest state Goa has an area of 3,702 Sq km and the least populated Sikkim has a  population of around 6,07,688. So what’s the Indian connection with Saint Lucia?

Eastern Caribbean Island of Saint Lucia, on March 1 was provided 25,000 doses of Indian made Covishield vaccines. The shipment was received by the country’s Prime Minister Allen Chastanet, who offered his regard anda appreciation to New Delhi for providing the lifesaving vaccine shots. Covishield, manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) is the same vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

https://twitter.com/allenmchastanet/status/1366479878548242437?s=20

India has send over 36 million doses of nationally made vaccines to over 25 countries, under its ‘vaccine maitri’  programme. On receiving the Covishield jabs,the Prime Minister of Saint Lucia Allen Michael Chastanet, took to twitter to share photographs of vaccine shipment  being unloaded from ariplanes. “Thank you to Prime Minister  @narendramodi and our friends from India for donating 25,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine to Saint Lucia,” he wrote in a Twitter post.

Health Emergency Operations Centre (HEOC) of the Maldives on Saturday said that it has vaccinated close to 1 lakh population with the Indian manufactured COVID-19 vaccine Covishield dispatched under India’s generous Vaccine Maitri’ initiative. Close to 1 lakh citizens have been vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus infection with jabs manufactured by the world’s largest Serum Institute of India (SII). In an official statement, HEOC spokesperson, Dr. Fathmath Nazla Rafeeq said that Maldives commenced the vaccination campaign across the entire island country except for HA Muraidhoo and V Fulidhoo islands, where resources are restricted and the population is scarce. However, the country plans to send mobile teams in these far-away islands to get the poulation vaccinated against COVID-19 .

Read more : English cricketer Alex Hales trolls Pakistan cricket board over low-quality breakfast

India has already provided six lakh doses of domestically produced COVID-19 vaccines to Ghana. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said on Twittter on February 24 that the western African nation had already received the jabs produced by Serum Institute of India (SII) and was about to commence its mass inoculation. India is one of the few countries to have accelerated attempts to providing free and vaccines at minimum rcost to several poor countries across the world.India has even earned WHO’s appreciation consistently.

shortlink

Post Your Comments


Back to top button