As India struggles to battle with the massive surge in COVID-19 cases, the government has also managed to inoculate 12,71,29,113 beneficiaries till April 20 in its massive vaccination drive.
As per the data of the Government of India, 12,71,29,113 doses have been been administered through 18,83,241 sessions. While in the last 24 hours, over 32 lakh vaccination doses have been administered.
On the other hand, India’s average daily vaccination per million people in the week ending April 18 was 2,408, lower than 2,554 per million in the previous week, stated a report.
This drop is despite India having a special focus on the inoculation process with ‘Tika Utsav’ across India, from 11 to 14 April. The fall in average vaccination numbers is mainly due to a shortage in vaccine availability in the country.
Over the last few weeks, the shortage of vaccines had put pressure on the central government to impose export curbs and allow foreign vaccine manufacturers to come to India. Until recently, only two vaccine manufacturers were permitted to sell in the country. The two vaccines were Serum Institute of India's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. Now, Sputnik has received government approval too.
According to Crisil report, India’s average daily vaccination per million people in the week ending April 18 was 2408, lower than 2554 per million in the previous week, indicating the slowdown in pace. “As of April 18, 16.4 per cent of the population in the age group of 40-60 were vaccinated, and among those aged 60 plus, a higher 33.1 per cent have been vaccinated,” stated Crisil in its report.
India continues to record over two lakh cases a day, with 2,59,170 new cases in the last 24 hours as of April 20. This is slightly lower than the previous day's tally. The country also recorded 1,761 deaths - the highest single-day death toll since the pandemic began.
