PM Modi promises to help Canada's vaccination efforts in talks with Justin Trudeau

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday assured his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau that India would do its best to facilitate supplies of COVID vaccines sought by Canada.

PM Trudeau, who made a telephone call to the prime minister, said that if the world managed to conquer COVID-19, it would be significantly because of India's tremendous pharmaceutical capacity and PM Modi's leadership in sharing this capacity with the world, according to a Prime Minister's Office (PMO) statement.

During the call, Prime Minister Trudeau informed PM Modi about Canada's requirements of COVID-19 vaccines from India.

Prime Minister Modi assured his Canadian counterpart that India would do its best to support Canada's vaccination efforts, just as it had done for many other countries already.

"We also agreed to continue collaborating on other important issues like Climate Change and the global economic recovery," he said.

The two leaders also reiterated the common perspective shared by India and Canada on many important geo-political issues. They agreed to continue the close collaboration between both countries in fighting global challenges like Climate Change and the economic impacts of the pandemic, the PMO said.

India is one of the world''s biggest drugmakers, and an increasing number of countries have already approached it for procuring coronavirus vaccines

Last week, external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said India had sent 56 lakh doses of coronavirus vaccines under grants assistance to a number of countries while 100 lakh doses were sent under commercial supplies.