COVID vaccination drive crosses 75-crore dose milestone in India

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Monday celebrated India’s “milestone” of delivering more than 75 crore COVID vaccine doses since the launch of the inoculation drive this January. He further linked the achievement to the country’s celebration of 75 years of Independence – Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.

Going by this rate, up to 43 per cent of India’s population will be protected against COVID via vaccination by December, which may not be enough to protect against an imminent third wave of the pandemic. Experts have urged India to cover at least 60 per cent of the population with both doses of the vaccine by the year-end to avoid the third wave. That will mean 120 lakh doses will have to be administered in a day.

“Congratulations India! With PM Narendra Modi’s ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas‘ mantra, the world’s biggest vaccination campaign has been relentlessly creating new dimensions. #AzadiKaAmritMahotsav, in the 75th year of independence, the country has crossed 75 crore doses of vaccination,” the minister wrote in Hindi on Twitter.

The central government has set a target of 200 crore vaccine doses by December, even though the vaccination rate over the past seven days has been around 70 lakh per day, and in the previous 24 hours, India delivered just a little more than 50 lakh doses.

As many as 4.4 lakh Indians have succumbed to COVID since March 2020, when the first death was recorded. Up to 3,74,269 people remain actively infected as of now.

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