Amid the dip in fresh COVID-19 cases and pick up in vaccination numbers, India overtook United States on Monday in terms of total vaccine doses administered so far. India has so far administered 32.36 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines, as per the Union Health Ministry's data, higher than the 32.33 crore doses administered in US. "India achieves another milestone in COVID-19 vaccination and overtakes USA in total number of Covid vaccine doses administered," the ministry said. On Sunday, 17.15 lakh vaccine doses were given across the country, as per the data with vaccination platform CoWIN. Vaccination numbers were lower as many centres are closed on Sunday. Also read: Bitcoin craze! Indians invested $40 bn in crypto last year
India's vaccination campaign has gained pace from June 21, the day new phase of universalisation of COVID-19 vaccination commenced. Under the new vaccination guidelines, Centre will procure 75 per cent of vaccines from domestic manufacturers and supply it to states, while vaccination is free for everyone above the age of 18 years. On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with top officials to review the progress of country's vaccination programme in which he was informed that India administered 3.77 crore doses in the previous 6 days, more than the entire population of countries like Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Canada. The Centre has told Supreme Court that a total of 51.6 crore vaccine doses would be made available by July 31 of which 35.6 crore have already been provided. It said there would be availability of enough vaccines to vaccinate the entire eligible population. The government said 135 crore vaccine doses would be available in the country during August-December 2021. India reported 46,148 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, while the active caseload declined to 5,72,994.
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