Accra, Ghana//-India’s Covid-19 vaccination drive has achieved a historic milestone of administering 1billion vaccine doses in less than 40 weeks.
The country’s Covid-19 vaccination drive was launched on 16th January 2021, which was under preparations since April 2020.
As of now, around 75% of the eligible population (18+) has been given the first dose, while around 30% has been given both doses.
Initially, India targeted the healthcare and frontline workers as well as senior citizens, and thereafter people above 45 years of age and with co-morbidities and later, all citizens above 45 years were included. In the ongoing phase, all adults above 18 years have been included and vaccination is being provided for free at public vaccination facilities.
India has used three vaccines in the vaccination Programme, viz. COVISHIELD (developed by Serum Institute of India in collaboration with Astra Zeneca of the United Kingdom), COVAXIN of Bharat Biotech International Limited and SPUTNIK V of Russia. Nearly all of the 1 billion doses administered have been Made-in-India, except for a miniscule proportion of Sputnik V.
The Asia country has also developed the world’s first DNA-based COVID vaccine Zycov-D, developed by Zydus Cadila, which will facilitate vaccination of children above 12 years.
Today, India is the only country that has developed multiple vaccines across multiple platforms (Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN uses an inactivated virus platform, Zycov-D is a DNA vaccine, Covishield a viral vector vaccine, Gennova is in the running for being India’s first mRNA vaccine).
The cold chain supply lines are being managed using Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN), which is an indigenously developed technology that digitizes vaccine stocks and monitors the temperature of the cold chain through a smartphone application.
India also developed a unique digital platform of CoWIN. CoWIN has made it possible to register beneficiaries, schedule their vaccination, generate QR Code based vaccine certificates and capture their vaccination history.
By the end of 2021, India is looking at an increased monthly production of Covid-19 vaccines, a larger basket of vaccine options and a larger proportion of India’s population fully vaccinated.
This would translate to a larger potential to share vaccines with the world, contributing toward realization of the Prime Minister of India’s vision of “One Earth, One Health”.
African Eye Report
