India’s vaccination numbers better than developed nations, asserts Centre

New Delhi: Drawing comparison with vaccination programmes across the globe, the Union Ministry highlighted that India has achieved higher vaccination rate than expected with the coverage of over 90 percent population with the first dose and 65 percent with the second dose.

Further highlighted that India has set many records in the process of achieving these numbers including administration of over 100 crore doses in less than nine months, administering 2.51 crore doses in a single day and administering one crore doses per day on several occasions.

India’s first dose coverage crossed 90 percent a few days ago which takes it ahead of USA, which has covered only 73.2 percent of the population, UK has covered 75.9 percent of its population, France has covered 78.3 percent of its population, and Spain has covered 84.7 percent of its population.

Similarly, for the 2nd dose of vaccines, the USA has covered only 61.5 percent of its population, the UK has covered 69.5 percent of its population, France has covered 73.2 percent of its population, and Spain has covered 81 percent of its population. While India has covered over 65 percent of the eligible population with second dose of vaccine against COVID-19.

Over 11 states/UTs in India have recorded 100 percent first dose vaccination, while 3 States/UTs have already achieved 100% full vaccination (both 1st and 2nd dose) against COVID-19.

Informing about the steps taken by the government to ramp up the vaccination coverage, it was stated that a nation-wide COVID-19 vaccination campaign Har Ghar Dastak helped in reaching out to the missed out and dropped out eligible beneficiaries. The government reported an increase of 11.6 percent in the first dose coverage while the second dose coverage increased by 28.9 percent in the same period.

Based on the advice provided by scientific groups and the rise being witnessed in COVID cases across the country, the inoculation of those in the age group of 15-18 years will begin from January 3 while the administration of third dose to priority groups will begin on January 10, 2022.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have additionally given approvals to two more vaccines- Biological-E’s CORBEVAX vaccine and SII’s COVOVAX vaccine for restricted use in emergency situations. This takes the number of vaccines given restricted use in emergency situations in India to 8, which can further help in strengthening the COVID vaccination drive.