COVID-19: India surpasses record, administers 20 million jabs in 24 hours

NEW DELHI: The Indian vaccination drive picked up pace on Friday, September 18, by administrating over 20 million COVID-19 vaccines, surpassing the country’s prevailing daily record of 13 million doses achieved on August 27. 

790 doses of the three approved vaccines in India namely Covaxin, Covishield and Sputnik, have been administered in the country. The Government of India aims to vaccinate the population by the end of 2021. However, public health experts say that a consistent and accelerated pace needs to be achieved in order to meet the target. Official data concludes that about 20 per cent of eligible adults have been fully vaccinated since the vaccine drive started in January.  

In the last two months, India has picked up the daily vaccination pace with more than 7.4 million doses administered daily in September. 

India needs to accelerate their pace of daily vaccination to over 10 million doses a day to meet its target 

India’s daily count has been dropping, with less than 40,000 new daily cases in the last month. However, doctors suggest treading cautiously as the threat of a third wave looms.  India has reported over 33 million COVID-19 cases and is third in the world to record over 4,40,000 deaths.