A billion jabs and counting, India celebrates a milestone
UNICEF CONGRATULATES GOVERNMENT, URGES IT TO RESUME COVAX SUPPLIES
India celebrated the milestone of administering 1 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses yesterday, with the government promoting the achievement in song and video even as a recent drop in inoculations worries health care providers.
After a slow beginning in the middle of January, India’s immunisation campaign has covered three-quarters of its 944 million adults with at least one dose but only 31 per cent with two. The government wants all adults to get vaccinated this year.
“India scripts history,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter. “We are witnessing the triumph of Indian science, enterprise and collective spirit of (1.3 billion) Indians.” Modi marked the occasion by interacting with health care workers and a security guard at a government hospital. The health ministry announced musical and other programmes across the country, and special illuminations of national monuments including a colonial-era jail.
Big push by SII
Nearly 90 per cent of the vaccines administered in India have come from the Serum Institute of India (SII), which produces a licensed version of the AstraZeneca drug. SII has more than tripled its capacity since April and can now produce 220 million vaccine doses a month. SII has also slowly resumed exports for the first time since April, when the government stopped all overseas sales to meet domestic demand as infections rose dramatically.
The World Health Organisation, which relies heavily on India for supplies to its global vaccine-sharing platform Covax, congratulated the country for reaching the landmark.
Covax partner Unicef also congratulated India and said it looked forward to “hearing details about the expected timeline and volumes of supplies to be made” to the global facility.
New Delhi has been annoyed by the WHO’s repeated delay in adding Covaxin shot to the world body’s emergency-use listing, something both parties discussed this week as well as exports. India has so far reported 34.1 million Covid-19 cases and more than 452,000 deaths, most during a second wave of infections.
A “sizeable number of people in India have not taken their second dose by the due date despite adequate supplies, the health ministry said on Tuesday, as new infections fell to their lowest since early March.