All you need to know about India’s Covid-19 vaccination drive | India News – Times of India
India, which started its vaccination programme on January 16, is at the fourth spot in the list of countries with a maximum number of Covid-19 doses administered.
Here is a look at some of the salient points of India’s Covid-19 vaccination drive.
India fastest to reach 50 lakh-mark
The health ministry said India is the fastest country to reach the 50 lakh-mark in Covid-19 vaccination in 21 days.
“In the last 24 hours, 4,57,404 people were vaccinated across 10,502 sessions. A total of 1,06,303 sessions have been conducted so far. It includes 3,01,537 healthcare workers and 1,55,867 frontline workers,” Union health minister said.
Uttar Pradesh leads India’s vaccination race
Over 6.73 lakh healthcare and frontline workers have been given the first dose of anti-Covid vaccine in Uttar Pradesh till date.
The number of people inoculated against the pandemic disease in Uttar Pradesh till Saturday is highest in the country.
Out of the people inoculated on Saturday, 47,714 were healthcare workers and 36,395 frontline workers.
Among the top four countries, India was the last to start the vaccination programme. The immunisation programme was started in the country on January 16.
In contrast, Israel started the vaccination programme on December 20 and the US started it on December 21. The UK began vaccinating its people on January 11.
It took Israel 45 days to administer 5 million doses. India, on the other hand, crossed the mark in mere 21 days.
India: Pharmacy of the world
From January 20 onwards, New Delhi has supplied coronavirus vaccines to several countries including Bhutan, Maldives, Mauritius, Bahrain, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Seychelles and Sri Lanka.
India has so far supplied Covid-19 vaccine to 15 countries and another 25 nations are in the queue at different levels for the jab, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday.
Jaishankar said Prime Minister Narendra Modis idea was to establish the country as the “Pharmacy of the World”, taking advantage of the domestic capabilities and the way India emerged as IT leader during the Y2K issue.
(With inputs from agencies)
