With more than 3.3 lakh people getting the first dose of COVID-19 vaccination on Friday, India breached the 50 lakh mark within 21 days. This is the fastest for any country to reach the five-million-mark as the US took 24 days, while the UK and Israel took more than 40 days to reach the milestone. The total number of beneficiaries in India have now climbed up to 52.9 lakh on the 21st day since the drive kick-started on January 16.
As per the Health Ministry, India is in the fifth position globally in terms of the total number of vaccine doses administered in the country, although many countries had launched their vaccination campaigns much before India. India started the world’s largest vaccination drive against Covid-19 on January 16, and 30 million healthcare workers are to be inoculated in the first phase. In the second phase, 270 million people, including senior citizens, will be vaccinated. India is using vaccines developed by Oxford University-AstraZeneca (Covishield) and Bharat Biotech International Limited (Covaxin). Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) is manufacturing Covishield in the country, while Covaxin is its first indigenous vaccine against the disease. A total of 1,04,781 vaccination sessions have been held so far.
The ministry also informed that no new event of hospitalisation has followed after vaccination in the last 24 hours. The total case of hospitalisation after vaccination still stands at 27, which works out to 0.0005% of those vaccinated.
