Covid-19 vaccine exports from India resulted in a big jump in the total volume of vaccine exports from India in the financial year ended March 2021.

“After the vaccination programme has been rolled out (in the last 100 days), Covid vaccines worth approximately $108 million have been exported from India,” R Uday Bhaskar, Director - General, Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil), told BusinessLine .

This is inclusive of 70 million doses of vaccine India gave to other countries as grants and sales. .

The value of total vaccine exports in FY21 increased by 7.98 per cent at $883 million as against $818 million in the previous financial year, as per Pharmexcil data.

Segment-wise, other single vaccine exports surged from $134 million to $242 million during January-March 2021.

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India is a major vaccine exporter to the world. The exports include vaccines for Cholera & Typhoid, hepatitis, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis (BCG), anti-rabis, Japanese encephalitis, whooping cough, among others.

However, after the onslaught of the pandemic and availability of Covid vaccines, India began to predominantly export Covid vaccines. As of now two vaccines are being produced in India — Covishield of Serum Insitutute and Covaxin of Bharat Biotech.

Apart form vaccines, drugs indicated for Covid-19 treatment too witnessed an uptrend in exports. For example, Remdesivir exports too doubled in March to $14.8 million from $5.75 million in February.

While exports show a strong trend, it may be noted that due to unexpected outbreak of Covid second wave, the country is now facing shortage of vaccines as well as Remdesivir.

Export boost

The surge in exports obviously added to the record growth of total pharma exports from the country in the last fiscal.

India’s pharmaceutical exports grew at a record 18 per cent to reach $24.44 billion in the year ended March 2021. This was the highest export growth rate in the last eight years for the pharma industry.

“With the likely surge in pharma and vaccine products this year, we expect Indian pharma exports to touch $30 billion in the current financial year,'' Bhaskar said.

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