After a year of India's inoculation drive againsts Covid-19, the government said over 93 per cent of the adult population had received at least one dose while over 69.8 per cent had been fully vaccinated. According to health ministry officials,  the government will issue a postage stamp to mark the completion of one year of the vaccination drive which it claimed has been one of the most successful and largest inoculation programmes when compared to many developed nations with a significantly low population base to vaccinate.

The government said the countrywide vaccination drive against COVID-19 completed one year January 16 during which over 1.56 billion vaccine doses have been administered.

In a tweet, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said that India, with a population of 1.35 billion, crossed the landmark milestone of administering 100 million vaccine doses on April 1 last year. As many as 250 million vaccine doses were administered on June 25, crossed 500 million vaccine doses on August 6 and 750 million doses on September 13, he said.

India started administering the precaution, or booster, dose of Covid vaccine to healthcare and frontline workers, which include polling personnel deployed in the five poll-bound states, and comorbid people aged 60 and above from January 10 in a bid to stymie the coronavirus spread driven by its Omicron variant.

In the vaccination drive, the country has achieved several milestones, which have no precedent in the world, including administering over 1 billion doses in less than nine months, administering 25.1 million doses in a single day and several times administering 10 million doses in a day, it said.

Covid vaccine doses administered in the country surpassed the 1 billion mark on October 21 last year. The cumulative vaccine doses administered in the country surpassed the 1.5 billion mark on January 7.

(SAM)