India vaccination drive hits record high with around 4 crore jabs this week

Out of the 3.98 crore jabs given this week, nearly 70 percent of the vaccinations (2.74 crore) were received in the 18-44 age group.

Aman Sharma

June 26, 2021 / 10:45 AM IST

Source: AP

India achieved its highest weekly vaccination figure so far as nearly four crore jabs were administered this week, the latest data on the government’s COWIN platform shows.

About 3.98 crore jabs were given during the week ended June 25, a significant jump from the previous weekly record of 2.47 crore jabs administered between April 3-9.

The record jump in doses administered last week is nearly double of 2.12 crore jabs given the week earlier between June 12-18. The weekly vaccination mark had in fact hit a low of merely 92 lakh jabs in the week between May 15-21, before the Centre took back the job from states of procuring vaccines for the 18-44 group.

“Nearly four crore jabs achieved in a week in June shows a consistent increase in the jabs being given daily. The government is looking at nearly 20 crore vaccinations happening in the month of July and 30 crore vaccinations in a month from August,” a senior government official told News18, expressing confidence that all 94 crore adults in the country can be fully vaccinated by December this year.

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COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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