NEW DELHI: India has witnessed the “speediest acceleration” of administration of Covid-19 vaccine doses, health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, highlighting that on March 15, India accounted for 36% of the 8.34 million shots given across the world.
As of March 15, India administered the second highest number of vaccine doses at around 3.3 crore in 60 days. The US leads with 10 crore doses though it started its vaccination programme around a month before India. The UK — which was the first to start Covid-19 vaccination — inoculated only 2.6 crore doses in 98 days, Bhushan said.
India administered over 3.6 crore vaccine doses till 7pm on Wednesday. Of this, 1.5 crore health and frontline workers have received their first doses, whereas 1.2 crore doses have been given to those above 60 and 23.8 lakh to people aged between 45 and 60 years with co-morbidities. Apart from these, 63.9 lakh health and frontline workers have received their second doses.
In the last two weeks (March 1-15), India administered an average of 13.1 lakh doses per day. While Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat had the highest average ranging between 1.5 lakh and 1.2 lakh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were among the poor performers. On Wednesday, 14 lakh doses were given till 7pm.