COVID-19: India Vaccinated Four Million People, Fastest Country To Do So

India vaccinated 4 million people against COVID-19, and also became the first country to achieve this feat so quickly.

Only 18 days have passed since the world's biggest COVID-19 vaccination drive was launched on 16 January 2021 in India. The union health ministry shared some good news on its official Twitter handle today. It said, India becomes the fastest country to reach 4 million COVID19 vaccination mark in 18 days.

The ministry also stressed on the fact that over 41 lakh beneficiaries have been inoculated as of Wednesday morning in the entire country. India is among the top five countries with regards to the number of vaccine doses administered. 

India's Recovery Rate Stands At 97.08%

The country's 14 states and union territories have reported zero deaths due to COVID-19 in a timespan of 24 hours. This includes states like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Goa, Sikkim, etc. India has managed to achieve a prominent decline in the number of active cases too. The country currently has over 1,60,057 active cases which is just 1.49 per cent of the total amount of active cases that have been reported.

The COVID-19 recovery rate of the country has been experiencing a steady rise and now stand at 97.08 per cent. Besides that, the country reported just 11,039 new cases on Wednesday. This is the lowest figure reported in the last seven months. 

Two vaccines namely Oxford-Astrazeneca's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin were approved for the vaccination drive in India currently. The drive started with the inoculation of frontline health workers followed by people over 50 years of age. The second category also included people aged above 50 suffering from various health complications. 

In India, COVID-19 vaccination hit  1 million doses in six days of the drive starting.  The government is planning to vaccinate 30 crore people in the first drive.

Biotech had earlier released a fact sheet specifying who can and cannot get the vaccine shots now. Read more about it here.

Pic Credit: The Financial Express