Bengaluru: India has registered more than 1 million vaccinations within the first six days of the mega drive, becoming the fastest country to do so.

It should be noted that the vaccination drive began in India on January 16. The vaccines were produced indigenously. They are Covishield and Covaxin. 

What is of greater importance and significance is that India has achieved this feat while providing vaccines to other nations as well. 

“India was the fastest country to reach 1 million Covid-19 vaccinations within six days. The United States achieved it in 10 days, Spain in 12 days, Israel in 14 days, the United Kingdom in 18 days, Italy in 19 days, Germany in 20 days and the United Arab Emirates in 27 days,” Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in New Delhi on Thursday, as quoted by Times Now. 
Many states are doing well in giving vaccines. 

“Odisha, Haryana, Rajasthan, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are among better performing states with over 35 per cent vaccination coverage of healthcare workers. Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra have less than 21 per cent vaccination coverage, and they need to improve,” the Health Ministry said.

“The number of active cases is declining, there are 1,75,000 active cases in the country as of now – a steady and declining trend is being exhibited,” Bhushan added.

“The UK variant strain is now present in 70 countries and we have identified 165 cases of it in India. We were able to find the first case of the UK variant on December 22-23. In a week’s time, we were able to collect blood from these patients and culture the strain,” Balram Bhargava, the Director General of ICMR, said

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always maintained that India should become the hub of production and embrace the aphorism ‘vasudaiva kutumbakam’ or ‘the world in one family’.