At the current pace, administering the first shot to the entire population would take 1 year and 11 months. Administering both doses to the entire population would require 12 years and 6 months, said the report.
Since India’s vaccination drive began on January 16, government data showed that so far only 13 crore doses have been administered. At this pace, India would take over 8 years to vaccinate 70% of the population and thus achieve herd immunity.
According to a Business Today report, going by the current rate, India would need 1 year and 4 months to administer the first shot of the vaccine to 70 percent of the population, and 8 years and 9 months to give the second dose to this section. To administer the first shot to the entire population would take 1 year and 11 months. Administering both doses to the entire population would require 12 years and 6 months.
The report said that over the past 50 days, 9.78 crore people got the first shot of the vaccine, whereas the second dose was administered to slightly over 1.5 crore citizens. So far, 1.1 crore doses of Covaxin have been administered while Covishield constitutes 90% of the vaccination drive with over 11.6 crore doses.
Also Read: “Covaxin Neutralises Double Mutant Strain” : ICMR
Earlier this week, India announced the third phase of its COVID-19 vaccination program starting May 1. The eligibility net has been widened to individuals above 18.
In its ‘liberalized vaccination program’, vaccine manufacturers have been asked to supply 50 percent of their monthly central drugs laboratory released doses to the Centre. They would be free to supply the remaining 50 percent to states and in the open market. Apart from Covishield and Covaxin, the Sputnik V vaccine, manufactured by Dr. Reddy’s Labs in India, is also in the pipeline in order to bolster up the number of vaccines.
India is facing a deadly second wave of the virus with 3.15lakh cases and 2104 deaths in the last 24 hours.
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