India is a country where the population is huge. Therefore, administering both the first and second doses to all the people is a bit difficult for the government. In April and May, the second wave of the pandemic Covid 19 reached India. At that time, people highly questioned the vaccination procedure of the Modi government. The Supreme Court asked the Modi government strictly as to when will the vaccination take place and to how many people will the doses be administered. When people in the country itself were dying due to corona, the government was busy sending vaccines to other countries. The opposition rounded up the present government and questioned them. They also said that if the government was serious regarding the vaccination of the countrymen, so many people would not have lost their lives when the second wave of the pandemic struck the nation.
When countries like America, the UK, and Israel were already done with vaccinating their entire huge population, India was lagging behind. This happened even after the fact that India was the largest vaccine manufacturing country in the whole wide world. When word spread, the government told the Supreme Court that till the end of the year, it will administer 216 crore doses. When this decision was claimed as unbelievable, the government changed its words and said in a subdued voice that by 31st December 2021, it will administer 135 crore doses. By the third week of October, 100 crore doses have been given to the citizens.
Today, Narendra Modi visited the Rammanohar Lohi hospital in Delhi. During his visit, the 1,00,00,000th dose was given. Narendra Modi later addressed the press saying, “I congratulate all the citizens of the country. 100 crore doses have been administered. This could not have been done without the help of you, my dear citizens. This victory is of India and all the citizens of India. I salute the vaccine manufacturing companies, the vaccine transportation laborers, and the vaccine administering health professionals from the core of my heart.” However, credit goes to Bharat Bio-Tech and Serum Institute. These two are the vaccine manufacturing units in India. They have increased their production as compared to earlier times. 90 crore out of 100 crore vaccines were manufactured by the Serum Institute.
Chairman Krishna Iyer said, “If Indians are kept under pressure, they can do anything. The pandemic came to India, the society kept us under pressure and hence the results are in front of everyone’s eyes. The government helped us too along with the citizens, health workers, and the media. That is why we are successful. That’s the naked truth. There is nothing to hide from anyone.” The 100-crore milestone was achieved in about 10 months after the inoculation drive was launched on January 16. The aim of the Government of India is to fully vaccinate the country’s entire adult population by December this year. India has administered more vaccine doses than any other country in the world apart from China. India stands at number two globally in terms of total doses administered, second to China. It is followed by the US, Brazil, and Japan. Population-wise, India has administered 49 doses per 100 people. In the meantime, the same figure is above 100 for every G7 nation which includes Canada, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Similarly, every G7 nation with the exception of Japan has fully vaccinated over half their eligible population. However, on that ground, India has covered only over 11 percent, according to Health Ministry August data. India has also managed to outpace the biggest economy of the world which is the US. It did so by administering more than twice the number of doses it has done so far despite starting a month after America began its drive. In the last week, an average of 948,921 doses per day was administered in the US whereas India administered an average of about 60 lakh doses per day. The Health Ministry reported this.
