India provides 30,000 doses of vaccine to Maldives after measles outbreak

India on Thursday handed over 30,000 doses of measles and rubella vaccine to the Maldives to contain a measles outbreak in the Indian Ocean archipelago, where four people tested positive for the disease in the past one week.

Though measles has been eliminated in the Maldives, the government in Male suspected an outbreak after the detection of the case and made an emergency request for vaccine to India. The vaccines were supplied within three days of the request being made, the external affairs ministry said.

People familiar with developments said Denmark had responded to a request from the Maldives by saying the vaccines could be supplied within a month’s time. The Unicef informed the Maldives supplies would take four weeks, the people said. The Maldives government then approached the Indian embassy for help on January 20.

The ministries of external affairs and health procured the vaccines from a firm in Pune and the consignment was handed over to authorities in Male on Thursday.

At a ceremony held at the health ministry in Male, health minister Abdulla Ameen presented a certificate of appreciation to the Indian ambassador, Sunjay Sudhir, to convey thanks for the gesture of goodwill and solidarity.

Health remains one of the strongest pillars of bilateral cooperation between India and the Maldives and the gesture “emphasises the mutually supportive roles of India’s ‘neighbourhood first’ policy and the Maldives’ ‘India First’ policy, the external affairs ministry said.

The two sides signed a MoU on health cooperation in June 2019 and delegations met in Male during January 5-6 to frame a roadmap for cooperation in capacity building and training of doctors and medical and mental health professionals, disease surveillance and setting up digital health capacities.

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