India all set to restart COVID vaccine exports from Oct

NEW DELHI: India is all set to resume its export of COVID-19 vaccines from October, five months after it halted sending supplies overseas as it battled a deadly wave of infections.

The South Asian giant, dubbed the "pharmacy of the world", was a major supplier to the Covax programme aimed at boosting immunisation in poorer nations.

The exports were stopped in the month of April when the country witnessed a virus surge which led to a huge demand for jabs.

Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said more than 300 million vaccine doses would be produced in October and one billion in the last three months of the year.

Launched in January, India's vaccination campaign was slow to take off because of shortages and hesitancy among the population.

But the pace has picked up in recent weeks, with authorities currently administering between five to eight million coronavirus shots every day.

The country hit a record 22 million coronavirus jabs in a day on Friday as part of a special vaccination drive for the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.