Vaccine Maitri ("Vaccine Friendship")[1] is a humanitarian initiative undertaken by the Indian government to provide COVID-19 vaccines to countries around the world.[2] The government started providing vaccines from 20 January 2021. As of 21 February 2022, India had delivered around 16.29 crore (162.9 million) doses of vaccines to 96 countries.[3] Of these, 1.43 crore (14.3 million) doses were gifted to 98 countries by the Government of India. The remaining 10.71 crore were supplied by the vaccine producers under its commercial and 4.15 crore were supplied by COVAX obligations. In late March 2021, the Government of India temporarily froze exports of the Covishield, citing India's own COVID crisis and the domestic need for these vaccines.[4] The Health Minister of India, Mansukh Mandaviya announced in September that India will resume the export of vaccines from October to the rest of the world.[5][6]
200,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were gifted by India to the UN peacekeepers on 27 March to be distributed to all peacekeeping missions.[7]