Covid-19: Consignment of India made vaccines arrives in Brazil

"It will be ensured that domestic manufacturers will have adequate stocks to meet domestic requirements while supplying overseas", Srivastava said.

Mr Srivastava said supplies as grant assistance to Sri Lanka and Afghanistan will be undertaken after receiving confirmation of regulatory clearances from these two countries.

Besides, he said that consignments of 1.5 million doses for Myanmar and 50,000 doses for Seychelles are being airlifted.

When asked whether Pakistan had made a request to India to get the vaccine supply, he avoided to give a direct reply saying that he was "not aware of any request for the supply of Indian made vaccines to Pakistan on a G2G basis or commercial basis".

Nepal and Maldives both said that India has shown goodwill by providing the vaccine. "Indian vaccines have arrived in Myanmar to contribute to our neighbour's inoculation efforts", External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar tweeted.

India is undertaking contractual supplies of coronavirus vaccines to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, Morocco, Bangladesh and Myanmar, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Friday.

India, which is believed to produce 60% of the world's vaccines in general, on Saturday rolled out its own COVID-19 vaccination drive - the largest globally aimed at covering 300 million of its 1.3 billion people - with Covishield and the indigenous Covaxin vaccine developed by local company Bharat Biotech.

India had earlier supplied hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir and paracetamol tablets, as well as diagnostic kits, ventilators, masks, gloves and other medical supplies to a number of countries since the pandemic began early previous year. The two nations also thanked India for the gift.

"As we announced on January 19, our grant assistance of vaccines to the neighbouring countries commenced on January 20". Pakistan, a close Beijing ally, earlier this week approved China's Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use.

In terms of quantities and types of vaccines, he said the supplies overseas on G-to-G, G-to-B and B-to-B basis would be based on availability and regulatory approval in the countries concerned since there was interest in many countries in access to vaccines from India.

"Trust the Pharmacy of the World".

"Indian vaccines reach Seychelles".