Only 5% of India fully vaccinated against Covid after 5 months of vaccination drive

Even more worryingly, the daily vaccinations have been on a downward curve since June 14, a day when maximum Covid vaccine doses were administered this month.
Beneficiaries wait in a queue to receive the COVID-19 vaccine dose, at a vaccination camp at DAV School Sector 49, in Gurugram. (Photo | PTI)
Beneficiaries wait in a queue to receive the COVID-19 vaccine dose, at a vaccination camp at DAV School Sector 49, in Gurugram. (Photo | PTI)

NEW DELHI: Over 5 months after the Covid vaccination drive was launched in the country, just about 5% of the adult population in India is now fully vaccinated, the government figures show. 

As per details shared by the Union Health Ministry in a press briefing on Friday, 5.03 crore people in India, with an adult population of 94 crores, have received two doses of Covid vaccines. 

The total vaccinations in India, on the other hand, have now reached 27.07 crore which means over one-fourth of the adult population in India has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine.

Globally, nearly 80 countries are ahead of India in terms of fully vaccinated population.  

For the past one week, the average daily vaccination in the country has been about 30.57 lakh, woefully short of 40 lakh daily vaccinations targeted by the Centre for this month. The highest daily vaccination for this month was 38.20 lakh on June 14, but even this could not match the highest daily vaccination of over 40 lakh in April's first week. 

Even more worryingly, the daily vaccinations have been on a downward curve since June 14, a day when maximum Covid vaccine doses were administered this month and this is not an ideal situation, warn experts. 

A member of the national Covid task force who did not wish to be identified said that in order to achieve the target of vaccinating all individuals by the year's end, the country should be vaccinating at least 70-75 lakh individuals every day, if not more. 

“But we are far short of this target largely due to low vaccine availability,” he said. 

While insisting that about 50% more Covid vaccines are available in June, as compared to last month, the Centre however had asked states to “substantially accelerate the pace of vaccinations”. 

It had said that 10 crore and 90 lakh doses of Covishield and Covaxin will be available respectively in June apart from nearly 1 crore doses of Sputnik V. 

The average daily Covid vaccinations in May had come down by a whopping 40% as compared to April, even though inoculations opened for all adult population in India from the beginning of last month.

As of now, India is using three vaccines against Covid19, Covaxin, Covishield, and the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, available in limited quantities at few private hospitals while its efforts to procure other vaccines from abroad are yet to yield any results so far.

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