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India is supplying anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and paracetamol to 87 countries on a commercial basis to meet their Covid-19 related health needs, a government official has said.
Apart from this, 2.8 million tablets of HCQ and 1.9 million tablets of paracetamol have already been sent as grant assistance to 25 countries and 31 countries respectively, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at a press conference on Thursday.
Countries to which India is selling HCQ include the US, Guyana, UK, Mauritius, Russia, South Africa, Uruguay, France, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, among others.
Srivastava said that India had also sent rapid response teams (RRTs) to Maldives and Kuwait, comprising doctors, nurses and paramedics, to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. “These RRTs have so far been deployed in Maldives and Kuwait at the request of their governments. These RRTs have helped to train and exchange best practices with local medical professionals on various aspects of dealing with the pandemic. They have been provided training on testing, critical care nursing, oxygen therapy isolation systems and infection prevention,” he said.
On the interaction of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with his counterparts in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group on April 28, the spokesperson said that the talks were centred around the Covid-19 crisis, its impact and BRICS response. “The Minister emphasised that the current challenge underlines the need for reform of multilateral systems and that reformed multilateralism was the way forward,” Srivastava said.
India continues to remain in touch with partners across the world as part of its collaborative approach to dealing with the pandemic, the spokesperson said. “During the last one week, Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) has spoken to Presidents of Indonesia and Prime Ministers of Ireland, Singapore, Canada and Bangladesh. PM also spoke to the State Counsellor of Myanmar today (Thursday) afternoon,” he stated.
The MEA’s engagement with the industry to get inputs on the strategy for G20 as India assumes the Chair of the group in 2022 was discussed in a virtual interaction between industry body CII and the Foreign Secretary earlier this week, the spokesperson added.
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