India to roll out many more vaccines to help world: Narendra Modi

New Delhi: India will soon make available many more Covid-19 vaccines to other countries after two Made-In-India jabs have already been introduced to the world, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday while emphasising the country's global responsibility in fighting the pandemic.

In a special address at the World Economic Forum's online Davos Agenda Summit, Modi also said he wants to assure the global business community that situation will now change rapidly on the economic front also and invited businesses from all over to participate in the country's growth journey.

Modi said that some had said in February-March 2020 that India would be the worst-affected country by Covid-19 and would face a "tsunami of corona infections". "Some had talked about 70-80 crore people expected to get infected in India, while some talked about over 20 lakh possible deaths, but India did not let the disappointment get better of it," he said.

"When Covid arrived, India had its share of problems. At the beginning of last year, several experts and organisations had made several predictions that India would be most affected by the pandemic. Looking at the condition of countries with better health infrastructure, the world was right in worrying about us," he said.

The Prime Minister, however, said in the midst of numerous doubts, he was here with "a message of belief, positivity and hope from over 1.3 billion Indians". Modi said, "We transformed the fight against coronavirus into a people's movement and today India is among the most successful countries in saving lives. We focussed on developing Covid-specific health infrastructure, we trained our human resources to fight against this pandemic and we made full use of tech for testing and tracking." Modi said India has started the world's largest coronavirus vaccination programme and its speed can be imagined from the fact that over 23 lakh health workers have been vaccinated in just 12 days. In the next few months, we would complete our target of vaccinating 30 crore old people and people with co-morbidities, he said. He said India has ensured that it follows its global responsibility by sending essential medicines to over 150 countries while Covid-19 vaccines are also being sent to other countries.

"In this time of crisis, India has also fulfilled its global responsibility from the beginning, following thousands of years old prayer of our country -- 'Sarvey Santu Niramaya': May the whole world be healthy," he said.