Under India’s grant assistance program to provide COVID-19 vaccines to its close neighbours, Nepal and Bangladesh on Thursday received vaccines from India. Earlier on Wednesday, Maldives, Bhutan had also received similar consignments.

An Air India plane, carrying 2 million doses of Covishield, the Oxford vaccines locally manufactured by India’s Serum Institute, landed at Hazrat Shahzalal International Airport at Dhaka at around 11:30 in the morning.

“#VaccineMatri reaffirms the highest priority accorded by India to relations with Bangladesh,” tweeted Dr. S Jaishankar, the Indian External Affairs Minister. 

Around 1 million vaccines have also been supplied to Nepal today. “Nepal receives Indian vaccines. Putting neighbours first, putting people first!” Jaishankar tweeted.

Earlier this week, Nepal Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali visited India to attend the Sixth Meeting of the Nepal-India High-Level Commission, where he had raised the demand for the COVID-19 vaccines. The supply of vaccines to Nepal came as a huge relief to Oli’s embattled government as the local media dubbed last week’s visit by the foreign minister a failure. 

Bangladesh had signed an agreement with the Serum Institute, the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines, for an additional supply of 3 million doses.