India vaccinated a record 40.05 lakh people on Monday as the country’s inoculation drive accelerated under the four-day “Tika Utsav' launched by Prime Minister Narednra Modi on Sunday to combat the second wave of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.
The number of vaccine doses administered in the country have now gone up to an impressive 10.85 million. India had already become the fastest country in the world to administer 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine on Saturday, achieving the feat in 85 days to surpass the 89-day record of the USA. China had taken 102 days to reach the 100 million vaccinations mark.
The extension of vaccine coverage to all those above 45 years along with the recent provisions for them to get vaccinated at their workplaces (government and private) form a series of pro-active and coordinated steps taken by the Centre and the State governments to facilitate the vaccinations.
The stepped up vaccination drive comes amidst a surge in Covid-19 cases in the country. India on Monday reported a net increase of 92,922 in active coronavirus cases to take its count to 1,201,009, the highest so far since the outbreak early last year.
Death rate is low
The country ranks fourth among the most affected countries in the total number of active cases. However, India also has a vast population of 1.3 billion and the death rate is among the lowest in the world at 1.28% of the total number of infections. Of these 70% of the fatalities have taken place in cases with co-morbidities. The number of fresh deaths reported on Monday was 879. Most of the infections are concentrated in five states with Maharashtra alone accounting for more than half the cases.
As many as 1.4 million people were tested for Covid on Monday as the country has gone on a war-footing to tackle the second wave of the pandemic.
Global scenario
Meanwhile, deaths due to Covid-19 shot past the 3 million mark worldwide.
Covid-19 deaths are rising once again, especially in Brazil. While it had taken more than a year for the global coronavirus death toll to reach 2 million. The next 1 million deaths were added in about three months.
India to produce more vaccines
India has now supplied Covid-19 vaccines to over 80 countries amid an acute shortage of doses worldwide even as some foreign media reports have been claiming that New Delhi has banned exports.
Interestingly, the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also stated that India has not banned exports of vaccines but was understandably prioritising its own needs to tackle a second wave of coronavirus cases. The WHO is sourcing vaccine supplies from India for the poor countries and clearly has no reason for complaint.
At the same time India is working on a war footing to produce more vaccines which will be rolled out in the coming months.
The Indian government on Monday approved Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine for production and use in the country. India is poised to become a major hub for producing the Sputnik V vaccine with five Indian companies having signed agreements for the production of the vaccine. The total capacity works out to around 950 million doses a year.
The other vaccines that are expected to be approved in the coming months are Johnson and Johnson, Novavax, Cadila Zydus and a nasal vaccine by Bharat Biotech. Cadila Zydus and Bharat Biotech are the two new indigenous vaccines in the pipeline while the other two are in partnership with US pharma giants.
Novavax and Johson & Johnson are two other vaccines that are on the fast track and have the backing of the Indo-Pacific Quad agreement for production in India. J&J has a deal with Indian firm Biological E Ltd to contract-manufacture its vaccine while US pharma giant Novavax has an agreement with Serum Institute of India.
