India will give millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccine to South Asian countries in the next few weeks, government sources said, drawing praise from its neighbours and pushing back against China’s dominating presence in the region.

Free shipments of AstraZeneca’s vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s biggest producer of vaccines, have begun arriving in the Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

India is considering giving away anywhere from 12 million to 20m shots to its neighbours in the first wave of assistance over the next three to four weeks, one government source said. India is also helping with the training of health workers in some of these countries and the setting up of the infrastructure to administer the shots, the source said.

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