The Indian-Canadian community, to thank the Modi-led BJP government, put up billboards in the Greater Toronto Area. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the request of Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, sent 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Canada. The shipment reached Canada on March 4.
Nine billboards have been put up over major highways in the Greater Toronto Area. The billboards, besides thanking Modi read, ‘Long live Canada India friendship’. Four more billboards are scheduled to be put up in the town of Brampton on Monday. Hindu Forum Canada tweeted, their president Rao Yendamuri’s comment regarding the billboards: “Our objective is to highlight the natural friendship between Canada and India and to highlight this positive development with India sending vaccines to Canada.
Under an agreement between the two nations, a total of two million COVID-19 vaccine doses will be dispatched to Canada by mid-May. India has not ruled out additional consignments. When India sent the 500,000 doses of the vaccine, PM Trudeau had said, if the world managed to conquer COVID-19, "it would be significant because of India's tremendous pharmaceutical capacity, and Prime Minister Modi's leadership in sharing this capacity with the world".
India has dispatched COVID-19 vaccines to 50 countries so far, including Brazil, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Oman, Afghanistan and Barbados.
The vaccines were produced at the Pune-based Serum Institute of India. As of on Wednesday, 3,221 people tested positive for COVID-19, pushing the total number of cases in Canada to 896,744. The virus has claimed 22,335 lives in Canada.
