Coronavirus vaccination: Amid the coronavirus pandemic, India has been stepping up to support several countries across the world by providing them huge amounts of coronavirus vaccine doses. This has been possible due to the massive manufacturing capacity of Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, and Pune’s Serum Institute of India (SII), which is the largest vaccine supplier in the planet in terms of the quantity of vaccine doses developed. Thus, India has been comfortably carrying out vaccination at dwelling as properly as sending out doses of SII-manufactured Covishield, which is a version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and Bharat Biotech’s indigenously created Covaxin.
However, now that the nation is ramping up the vaccination drive, SII has been asked to prioritise the wants of the nation (India) and along with that balance the wants of the rest of the planet. In a post on microblogging internet site Twitter, SII CEO Adar Poonawalla wrote that he has been directed by the government to prioritise the vaccine specifications of the nation, which demands doses in massive amounts due to the enormous population. Accordingly, he asked the governments of other nations to wait patiently for the provide of Covishield, as the corporation attempted to figure out how to keep the proper balance involving the wants of India and that of other nations.
Notably, India has been sending out doses of coronavirus vaccine to several nations below various sorts of agreements to aid them start and undertake vaccination drives for their respective populations. This had been feasible, simply because when India started the enormous vaccination drive in January this year, it decided to 1st vaccinate the healthcare workers as the 1st group amongst priority beneficiaries, followed by frontline workers as the second one. At the moment, the healthcare workers are getting second doses, although frontline workers are getting their 1st doses of the vaccine.
But now, India is about to ramp up the drive to vaccinate the third of the priority group – persons aged above 50 years. This group includes about 26 crore persons, considerably more than the quantity of beneficiaries vaccinated so far. As per the existing plans, these beneficiaries would start getting jabs next month. This signifies that the supplies required to undertake the vaccination of this group would be considerably more and they would be required quickly, justifying the government’s directive to prioritise India’s wants.
Covid-19: Vaccination in India so far
Till now, almost 1.11 crore doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered in the nation. Of these, more than 1.01 crore have been administered as 1st doses, although 9.6 lakh beneficiaries, all of whom are healthcare workers, have received second doses of the vaccine. While close to 64 lakh healthcare workers have received the 1st dose, more than 37.3 frontline workers have received the second dose.
On Saturday, a total of more than 4.32 lakh doses had been administered the vaccine, amongst which 2.56 lakh beneficiaries received the 1st dose, and more than 1.76 lakh had been provided the second dose.
The highest quantity of doses has been administered in Uttar Pradesh, exactly where more than 11.5 lakh doses have been administered, of which 10.66 lakh had been 1st doses and 85,752 had been second doses. Meanwhile, Maharashtra stands as a distant second, getting administered a total of 9,22,728 doses, with properly more than 8.75 lakh getting 1st doses.
India started administering the second doses to healthcare workers on February 13, and seven states account for a whopping 60% of the second doses that have been administered so far, with the highest getting Karnataka. Karnataka accounts for the highest quantity of second doses, standing at more than 1.13 lakh second doses, which translates to 11.81% of the second doses administered in the nation so far. The state is followed by Odisha, which accounts for 9.89% of the national total, with Telangana at the third position at 9.07%. Uttar Pradesh is at fourth spot, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal.