Vaccine / India took 34 days to vaccinate 1 crore people, 2nd fastest after US: Govt

NEW DELHI: India administered more than one crore doses of Covid vaccines till Friday evening, becoming the second fastest in the world to cross the milestone in the fight against the global pandemic with plans to boost vaccination sessions to 40,000-50,000 a day from the current average of 10,000.

India has taken 34 days to achieve the landmark of 1.04 crore vaccinations, closely following the US, which took 31 days. “For a country as diverse as India, this is a very big achievement and, in next few weeks, the numbers will increase tremendously,” a senior government official said.

The government talking of ramping up vaccination sessions points at plans to start vaccinating the priority population groups of above 50 years of age and those with co-morbidities by early or mid-March. The government plans to significantly ramp up vaccination sessions across the country and states as well as the private sector have been roped in to facilitate the same. “This will enable people to fix up vaccination appointments at sessions of their choice, in a nearby location and convenient time.

This will encourage people to come forward for vaccination and increase the footfall. Besides, it is important to have more sessions to better organise the vaccination process,” the official said. So far, 2,20,877 sessions have been organised across the country to give over 1.04 crore vaccine doses till Friday.

Of this, almost 63 lakh healthcare workers and close to 34 lakh frontline workers have taken the first dose. Besides, 7.6 lakh health workers have also received the second dose. On Thursday, the highest single-day vaccination of 6,58,674 doses were administered. While eight states accounted for around 57% of the total vaccine doses administered so far, UP administered the highest of over 11.3 lakh doses, followed by Maharashtra and Gujarat at 8.5 lakh and 8.4 lakh, respectively.