On Jun. 29, 2021, India announced it had authorized the emergency use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine as it seeks to ramp up its vaccination drive in the wake of a record-breaking surge in infections and deaths. The vast nation of 1.3 billion people was hit by a massive spike in coronavirus cases in April and May that pushed the health care system to breaking point.

Moderna’s shot is the fourth to be approved by New Delhi after Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield and Covaxin, which was developed by Indian firm Bharat Biotech, and Russia’s Sputnik V. A small number of Sputnik V shots have imported into India after the drug was granted approval in mid-April, but the majority are expected to be manufactured within the country, like Covishield and Covaxin.

India said two months ago that it would fast-track the approval of vaccines manufactured outside the country that have already been granted emergency use authorization by major regulators such as the US Food and Drug Administration. The government had been under pressure to speed up its flagging inoculation drive by allowing the import of foreign-made vaccines such as mRNA vaccines Pfizer and Moderna.