Abdulla Shahid, President of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, said that he has received two doses of the India-manufactured Covishield vaccine like a large portion of other countries worldwide.
When asked whether any COVID vaccine should be recognised and considered, he responded, "On vaccines, that's a very technical question you have asked me. I got Covishield from India, I've got the two doses. I don't know how many countries would say that Covishield is acceptable or not, but a large portion of the countries have got Covishield."
"And I've survived. But let someone else, a medical person make that call, not me," the Maldives resident added with a laugh.
Thus far, India has exported over 66 million vaccine doses to nearly 100 countries through grants, commercial shipments and the COVAX facility. The Maldives is one of the first countries to receive Covishield. In January, about 100,00 doses were dispatched to Male. Thus far, the country has received 3.12 lakh doses of India-manufactured vaccines.
Though the UK had initially refused to recognise Covishield manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, it then amended its guidelines and included the vaccine on September 22.
Shahid noted that the messages he had received thus far on vaccines by listening to world leaders at the General Debate "has been most positive from the United States, from China, from India, from many, many corners of the world, from the vaccine producers themselves". He further plans to convene a high-level meeting of the General Assembly in January to take stock of the global vaccination effort and equity.
"And I intend to utilise the convening power of the President of the General Assembly to bring all of them together in January, and my desire is to make sure that we all come out of the January meeting with a much more optimistic timeline where hereby we will be able to vaccinate the entire world by end of 2022," he said.