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NEW DELHI: While WHO has suspended HCQ trials, stoking further doubts about the efficacy of the drug in dealing with Covid-19, India is unlikely to roll back its medicine diplomacy in haste. The government, however, has asked its missions to check with countries it was looking to donate HCQ to if they still wanted the antimalarial drug.
The abundance of HCQ helped Indian companies honour commercial agreements but, more importantly, it also allowed the Indian government to up its game in far corners of the world, and where China has worked actively to provide Covid-related assistance, by donating HCQ tablets in large numbers.
India has so far approved supply of HCQ tablets purely as grant assistance to 76 countries, 47 of which are in Latin America, Caribbean and Africa. Until May 22, 24 out of 76 countries had already