COVID-19: BRICS members laud India for vaccine distribution across world in time of need

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Thursday, chaired the 13th BRICS summit themed “BRICS@15: Intra-BRICS cooperation for continuity, consolidation and consensus”. In the much-vaunted virtual summit, leaders from the member countries discussed a variety of issues including the coronavirus pandemic, eco-terrorism inter alia. Now, in the aftermath, bloc’s members have showered accolades on the Narendra Modi-led administration for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the region and across the world.   

Notably, India supplied more than 663 lakhs vaccine doses to 95 countries under its Vaccine Maitri programme. Lauding the efforts, other members of the organisation asserted that India emerged not only as a leader in COVID-19 vaccine production but also its dissemination in the times when a large number of people were affected by a respiratory illness. BRICS is an acronym for an organisation comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. 

"In the distribution of vaccines, all the BRICS members were very appreciative of our role, not only as a major country producing vaccines but also distributing in times when we had a large number of people affected by it,” Sanjay Bhattacharyya, spokesperson for Ministry of External Affairs said. 

"COVID-19 was reflected at the BRICS discussion by all the leaders and it has also been mentioned in the New Delhi Declaration," Bhattacharyya added. 

'BRICS@15'

The virtual summit was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Speaking at the virtual summit, PM Modi touched upon varied issues ranging from counter-terrorism, green tourism and COVID-19.

To begin the summit, PM Modi highlighted the importance of the four Cs in the theme of the summit, i.e. "cooperation for continuity, consolidation, and consensus".

"Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 150 sessions and programmes were organised by BRICS. Out of these, more than 20 were ministerial-level programmes," PM Modi said while adding that "We will have to ensure that BRICS yields more results in 15 years. The theme that has been chosen by India for its chairmanship, reflects this priority".

Earlier, in 2016, PM Modi had chaired the BRICS summit held in Goa. Last year, the 12th BRICS summit that was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic was held under the chairmanship of Russia. China is next in line to take over the chairship of the BRICS summit next year.

(With inputs from ANI) 

(Image: ANI)