India to ship anti-malaria drug to Maldives, 12 other countries

The Indian government has approved the shipment of the anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, which is also being used to treat COVID-19 patients, to 13 countries, including the Maldives.

The full list of the 13 countries are; Maldives, United States, Spain, Germany, Bahrain, Brazil, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Seychelles, Mauritius and the Dominican Republic.

At a press briefing on Friday, the Joint Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs of India, Dammu Ravi said that the Indian government had been besieged with requests to export the drug.

"A lot of requests for HCQ were already there and taking into view domestic stock and requirement while keeping a sufficient buffer, a decision was taken by the Group of Ministers to release some of the surplus medicine for export purposes,” said Ravi.

Ravi said the first consignment of the drug would be shipped soon, and would be followed by two more consignments.

The Indian Health Ministry has announced that that the country currently had over 32 million tablets of the malaria drug and continued to produce more. It said that India itself was expected to require 10 million tablets for domestic use in the coming week, and had therefore made the decision to export the excess, while keeping a sufficient buffer.

Maldives will receive 200,000 tablets.