India past billion Covid-19 vaccine doses milestone

DPA New Delhi India on Thursday celebrated administering more than 1 billion Covid-19 vaccinations, a milestone that raises hopes that its vaccine supplie...

DPA New DelhiIndia on Thursday celebrated administering more than 1 billion Covid-19 vaccinations, a milestone that raises hopes that its vaccine supplies would soon be available for poorer countries under the COVAX programme.“This is a tremendous achievement, given the logistical complexity of administering 1 billion doses in less than a year, in a country asvas t and diverse as India,” UNICEF’s India representative Yasmin Ali Haque said in a release.“We particularly look forward to hearing details about the expected timeline and volumes of supplies to be made available by the government of India to the COVAX facility.” India, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of vaccines, recently announced it would resume exports of Covid-19 vaccines which were stopped earlier this year.The country’s vaccination roll-out began in January and has been marked by ups and downs, including shortages pulling down the pace of vaccinations and then a quick pick-up after production and raw material supply chain issues were resolved.Around 75 per cent of the country’s adult population of an estimated 944 million had received a single shot of the vaccine and around 31per cent had got both doses, according to the Ministry of Health. Health Ministry officials have acknowledged that the gap between the first and second dose numbers is a matter of concern. At a briefing earlier this week, the officials did not give numbers but said that “a sizeable number” of eligible beneficiaries had not taken the second dose. The government has repeatedly said it aims to provide inoculations to the entire adult population by the end of the year.AstraZeneca-Oxford University’s vaccine produced as Covishield by the Serum Institute of India has been the main vaccine used in India’s programme along with Covaxin manufactured by Indian firm Bharat Biotech.India is the second country after China - the only other country with a population of more than 1 billion - to cross the 1-billion vaccination mark and celebrated with music and video releases, announcements on trains and planes and illumination of important buildings. Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya was set to launch a song by singer Kailash Kher and an audio-visual film at the iconic Red Fort in New Delhi to mark the occasion, state-run Doordarshan television reported. Mandaviya in a Twitter post appealed to all those who are eligible to get inoculated without delay. India is second only to the United States in terms of its coronavirus caseload, with over 34 million cases and 452,651 deaths.