New Delhi: India will start supplying hundreds of thousands of doses of ‘Covishield’ vaccine on a grant basis to key neighbours from Wednesday, beginning with 2,50,000 vaccine doses for Bhutan and Maldives. A press release from the Ministry of External Affairs stated that India would start supplying vaccines for COVID-19 in response to requests from neighbours and other partner countries.“In response to these requests, and in keeping with India’s stated commitment to use India’s vaccine production and delivery capacity to help all of humanity fight the Covid pandemic, supplies under grant assistance to Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles will begin from 20 January 2021,” said the press communique.The first batch of 150,000 doses of the Oxford University and AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine, manufactured by Serum Institute of India, will reach Thimpu on Wednesday morning. The second will reach Male international airport at around 2 pm with 100,000 doses of Covishield. India fulfils commitment to give vaccines to humanity. Supplies to our neighbours will start on 20th January.The Pharmacy of the World will deliver to overcome the COVID challenge.#VaccineMaitri https://t.co/0pEW52ARe5— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) January 19, 2021Bhutan prime minister Lotay Tshering had announced on Tuesday that once that government procures 1.2 million doses, it will immunise the entire eligible population of around 533,000 within a week.Maldives also opened a registration drive for COVID-19 vaccination on Monday. India’s immediate supply will be for emergency use for frontline workers, people with co-morbidities and the elderly in the population. Besides, Maldives has also been pledged 4,00,000 doses of vaccine under COVAX. Separately, Maldives government has also signed an agreement with AstraZeneca Singapore, for vaccine supply.Other countries like Bangladesh and Nepal are likely to receive their supplies on Thursday. The Bangladesh foreign ministry has already announced that the country will be receiving 2,00,000 doses from India.India will also be supplying free vaccine doses to Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Mauritius after completing the necessary regulatory clearances.With having started an immunisation programme last weekend, the external affairs ministry had asserted that it would be “ensured that domestic manufacturers will have adequate stocks to meet domestic requirements while supplying abroad”.But MEA also assured that India would continue to supply COVID-19 vaccines to partner countries “over the coming weeks and months in a phased manner”.Earlier on Tuesday, India also organised a training course on the immunisation programme’s administrative and operational aspects in several countries.Coming closer to D-day!Ambassador addressed healthcare professionals from Bhutan ahead of their 2-day virtual training programme on vaccine administration & operational aspects.#Vaccinemaitri #indiabhutanfriendship 🇧🇹🇮🇳#affordablevaccine4all pic.twitter.com/k5h1A4tC8u— India in Bhutan (@Indiainbhutan) January 19, 2021These vaccines will be delivered to the selected countries on a grant basis. Several of them are also scheduled to purchase additional batches of vaccines from Serum Institute of India on a commercial basis. For example, a Bangladeshi pharma company Beximco and Serum Institute of India had signed an agreement as early as August last year for import of vaccines on a priority basis. After that, the Bangladesh government had entered into a trilateral agreement with the two firms in November.#VaccineMaitri🇮🇳&🇧🇩 #Unite2FightCorona#India and #Bangladesh working together on Training the Trainers for Vaccine rollout, to jointly combat #COVID19#TogetherWeWillDefeatCovidGlimpses from today’s Inaugural Session 👇 pic.twitter.com/uNDSKL9V6H— India in Bangladesh (@ihcdhaka) January 19, 2021The Bhutan government had also stated that while India had assured it that it will vaccinate the entire population for free, Thimpu was also ready to pay for the vaccines.The announcement of the launch of the supply of vaccines takes place a day after a high-level meeting was held by the health ministry, which was also attended by MEA officials.According to News 18, Serum Institute of India has informed that it has 53 million doses in stock, out of which 25 million are for export. It has also provided more than 11 million doses to the Indian government so far. The MEA is also likely to get 810,000 doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin vaccine by the end of this week.