1 billion COVID-19 vaccinations expected before mid-October

This would include both first and second doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

Moneycontrol News

September 17, 2021 / 16:04 IST

Representative image.

India will complete administering as many as 100 crore (one billion) COVID-19 vaccine doses by mid-October, news agency ANI quoted sources as saying on September 17. This would include both first and second doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

Notably, China has already fully vaccinated more than one billion people, that is, 70 percent of its eligible population, according to a Bloomberg report. As of September 15, China had administered 2.16 billion doses of the coronavirus vaccine. It is ahead of the United States and Europe vis-à-vis COVID-19 vaccination coverage at present.

India's pace of vaccination has gained momentum since last month with more than one crore daily COVID-19 vaccinations being completed for the fourth time today. The country, on September 17, completed administering 1.6 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses by late afternoon, surpassing the past record of completing 1.33 crore vaccinations in one day on September 1.

Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on September 17: “Daily COVID-19 vaccinations crossed the one-crore mark for the fourth time in less than a month, taking the total number of doses administered in the country to over 78 crore.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya added that this is the fastest pace at which one crore coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered in the country.

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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