On Thursday, India surpassed the mark of 1 billion doses of vaccines against Covid-19 applied, becoming the second country after China to reach this historic number in just over nine months.
The South Asian country surpassed at 9:47 am (local time) the mark of 1 billion doses applied in the country since the beginning of the vaccination campaign, on January 16, according to data from the official platform “Cowin”, created by the authorities for vaccination management.
In the last 24 hours, just over 4.1 million doses were inoculated in the country with more than 1.25 billion inhabitants, while China administered more than twice as much.
In total, more than 700 million people have received at least one dose in India, while nearly 300 million people have already received the full dose. The country has about 950 million adults.
The president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Dr. JA Jayalal, explained to Efe Agency that the interval between the first and second dose is 80 days in the country, so the difference is still big between the partially and fully vaccinated.
Also, he added, “six months ago it was very difficult to administer more than 3 million doses (daily). Now, we can reach up to 10 million doses a day, but that’s something we’ve been able to do in the last three months. So, those people who have been vaccinated with the first dose at this time will receive the second in the coming months.”
India celebrated the milestone with celebrations, including a countdown on the “Cowin” website, counting the remaining doses to reach the grand achievement of 1 billion, which was accompanied by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan, “Together, India will defeat Covid-19”.
Meanwhile, India’s pandemic is at its lowest in months, with 18,454 new cases in the past 24 hours – far from more than 400,000 daily infections during the peak of the country’s second wave in May – bringing the total to 34.1 millions of positive diagnoses in the country.
In turn, 160 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, a number far below the more than 4,000 deaths per day during the month of May, which raises to 452,811 the number of victims of Covid-19, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Indian Health.
The campaign in India relies heavily on two formulas manufactured in the country: Covishield, from AstraZeneca; and Covaxin, from the Indian laboratory Bharat Biotech. It also has other licensed vaccines, such as the Russian Sputnik V, and the American Moderna and Janssen.
To commemorate the milestone of 1 billion vaccines applied, 100 monuments will have special lighting and honors to health professionals, frontline workers and vaccine manufacturers.
#India #surpasses #billion #doses #vaccines #Covid #applied