India's COVID vaccination coverage crosses 80-crore mark

India's COVID-19 vaccination coverage surpassed the 80-crore mark on Sunday, a day after the country administered a record over 2.5 crore vaccine doses. The 80.43 crore COVID-19 vaccination mark includes 85.42 lakh doses in the last 24 hours, as per the Health Ministry statement.

The government has provided more than 78.58 crore doses to states and union territories so far via the free of cost and direct state procurement channels. While 1.16 crore doses are in the pipeline, states still have more than 5.16 crore unused vaccine doses.

India took 24 days to reach 40 crore from 30 crore doses and then 20 more days to cross the 50-crore vaccination mark on August 6, the Health Ministry said. The ministry also mentioned that it took 19 more days to breach the 60-crore doses mark and merely 13 days to reach 70 crore from 60 crore on September 7. The total number of vaccine doses administered all over the country crossed the 75-crore mark on September 13.

Last week, the Union Health Ministry and NITI Aayog rolled out a USAID-supported ‘City-to-City COVID-19 Vaccination Learning Exchange (CoVLEx)’ initiative to build a global COVID-19 vaccination knowledge management platform and to initiate an exchange of ideas and learnings on the pandemic response. The CoVLEx platform will develop products like an interactive web-based knowledge portal, Best Practices Compendium and will also organise online forums for cities and countries to learn from each other’s experiences.

“India’s vaccination drive has been emboldened in the recent months with up to 100 million vaccinations administered within two weeks in September. This result is a culmination of meticulous planning and joint efforts by the Centre and state governments on production, procurement and supply of vaccines complemented with technological advances such as CoWIN, etc. Government of India will wholeheartedly contribute and support in providing the knowledge and tools to other nations in accelerating their vaccination campaign,” Dr Manohar Agnani was quoted by news agency ANI as saying.

Edited by Mehak Agarwal; with agency inputs

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