Sweden plans to donate 1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to India via the U.N.-backed COVAX, an initiative devised to give countries access to coronavirus vaccines regardless of their wealth.
The Scandinavian country's International Development Cooperation Minister Per Olsson Fridh announced it Monday on Swedish broadcaster SVT, adding “we see how the pandemic is raging around the world. People are dying, poverty is spreading, and children are still not back at school.”
“We need to do everything we can to face this pandemic and fight it across the world.”
The donation will have no impact on the rollout in Sweden which has decided to only administer the AstraZeneca shots to people 65 and over.
The country's vaccine coordinator Richard Bergstrom said there are enough spare vaccines that Swedes can give away, adding “This is just a million ... we actually have another 4 or 5 million more of Astra Zeneca's vaccine that we can share later.”
