Graphic: Capturing India's one year of COVID vaccination drive

Even as India grapples with the contagious Omicron variant, the country marked the first anniversary of its massive vaccination campaign undertaken to fight the COVID-19 pandemic on Sunday (January 16).

In this one year, the country had administered 156.76 crore vaccine doses, said health officials. More than 93 per cent of the adult population have received at least one dose, while over 69.8 per cent have been double vaccinated.  The Centre will issue a postal stamp to mark this milestone.

The drive was rolled out on January 16 last year with healthcare workers getting inoculated in the first phase. The vaccination of frontline workers started from February 2, after which the next phase of the COVID-19 vaccination commenced from March 1 for people over 60 years of age and those aged 45 and above with specified co-morbidity conditions.

People flocked to the vaccination centres to get their dose of either the Covaxin or the Covishield. There were people who shied away from the vaccine in large numbers as well.

Subsequently, the vaccination of all people aged over 45 was flagged off from April 1 and then everyone above 18 was allowed to be vaccinated from May 1.
The next phase of COVID-19 vaccination commenced from January 3 this year for adolescents in the age group of 15-18 years.

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India’s vaccination campaign has been one of the most successful and the largest inoculation programmes when compared to many developed western nations with a significantly low population base to vaccinate, said the health ministry in a statement.

In the vaccination drive, the country achieved several milestones such as giving 100 crore doses in less than nine months, administering 2.51 crore doses in a single day and several times administering one crore doses in a day, said the health ministry.

With the administration of more than 66 lakh vaccine doses in a day, India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 156.76 crore, according to provisional reports till 7 am on Sunday.

Also, India has embarked on giving precaution or what is widely known booster doses. More than 43.19 lakh precaution doses of the vaccine have been administered so far. While, 3,38,50,912 first doses have been given to beneficiaries in the 15-18 years age group, which also became eligible for the vaccination shot.Even as India grapples with the contagious Omicron variant, the country mD-19