WEF Davos Agenda: India will supply many more COVID-19 vaccines to world, says PM Modi

India will soon rollout many more coronavirus vaccines for the benefit of the world, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during his special address at World Economic Forum's Davos Agenda Summit on Thursday. The developments on vaccine front will rapidly change the economic scenario, he further stated.

"India is saving the lives of citizens of other countries by sending the COVID vaccines to many countries of the world and by helping them build vaccination infrastructure. Only two Made-In-India coronavirus vaccine have been released as of now. Many more such vaccines will come from India in future. These vaccines will help the countries of the world on a much larger scale, at a higher speed," PM Modi said.

In the beginning of his address, the Prime Minister said that several experts and institutions had predicted that India will be the worst-hit country during the pandemic. "It was said that India will face a tsunami of coronavirus cases. Some said 700-800 million Indians will be affected, while some predicted 2 million deaths. Considering the situation in major countries with advanced health infrastructure at that time, the world's concerns about a developing country like India were justified," he said.

Despite the challenges, India moved ahead with proactive public participation, said the Prime Minister. The focus was on developing COVID-specific health infrastructure and training human resources to fight the pandemic, used technology in abundance for testing and tracking, and transformed the fight against coronavirus into a public movement, he said.

India today is among the nations that have been the most successful in saving lives and where number of cases is rapidly declining, he said. The country has also managed to effectively contain the coronavirus, saving the world and mankind from a huge calamity.

"At the onset of COVID-19, we used to import masks, PPE kits, testing kits. Today, we are not only fulfilling our domestic demand, but exporting them to other countries. World's biggest coronavirus vaccination programme is underway in India. We are vaccinating 30 million health and frontline workers in first phase. In just 12 days, we have already vaccinated 2.3 million people. In the next few months, we will vaccinate 300 million elderly persons and those with co-morbidities," the Prime Minister said.

Emulating the ancient prayer of 'Sarve Santu Niramaya' India fulfilled its global responsibility during the crisis. PM Modi said. Not only did we repatriate over one lakh foreign nationals but also sent medicines to more than 150 countries even when the international airspace was closed, he said.

"With India's success, I am also assuring the world that the conditions on the economic front will also change rapidly now. Even in the times of COVID-19, India has spent lakhs of crores on infrastructure, rolled out schemes for employment to maintain economic activity. Then we insisted on saving every single life, now every single life of India is fully dedicated to the progress of the country," PM Modi said.

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