Sept 21, 2021: The country’s health minister said on Monday that India will resume exports of the Covid 19 vaccine in October, giving priority to the global vaccine sharing platform Covax and neighboring countries as supply increases.

India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, halted exports of covid19 shots in April to focus on vaccinating its population in the event of an outbreak. The country’s monthly vaccine production has more than doubled and will quadruple next month for more than 300 million doses, said Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, adding that only surplus supplies will be exported.

The country halted its vaccine exports in April as domestic threat mounted amid a deadly second wave of the pandemic, one of the worst any country has experienced so far.

He added that in the last three months of the year, the total production could reach 1 billion as new vaccines are likely to be approved by companies like Biological E.