India Sets Record with 10 Million Vaccine Doses Administered in a Single Day

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] India, once criticized for failing to meet even its domestic COVID-19 vaccination demand despite being called the "world's vaccine factory," has succeeded in increasing its daily vaccination count to 10 million doses.

According to the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on the 28th, 10,335,290 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered across India the previous day. Since the start of COVID-19 vaccinations in India on January 16, this is the first time the daily vaccination count has exceeded 10 million doses. Prime Minister Narendra Modi described this achievement as a "significant milestone" in a post on his Twitter account the day before.

Earlier this year, the Indian government relied on its capacity to produce 60% of the world's vaccines, providing vaccine aid to neighboring countries and actively exporting to various regions. However, due to production delays by manufacturers and inadequate vaccine procurement and pricing policies, a vaccine shortage occurred, and the daily vaccination count remained sluggish at 1 to 3 million doses until mid-June. Although the cumulative number of doses administered surpassed 400 million in mid-May, only about 83 million people had completed their second dose.

The authorities initially aimed to complete vaccinations for 300 million people by August, but significant setbacks occurred. From June 21, free vaccinations were extended to all adults nationwide. Additionally, the federal government took direct control of 75% of the total vaccine supply instead of state governments and encouraged pharmaceutical companies to increase vaccine production. Thanks to these efforts, the vaccine supply situation improved, and from late June, daily vaccinations increased to 5 to 6 million doses. As of this day, 623 million doses have been administered in India. Among them, about 142 million people have completed their second dose, accounting for approximately 10.3% of the 1.38 billion population.

To accelerate vaccination efforts further, the government is also approving additional emergency use authorizations. Following the AstraZeneca vaccine (Covishield) produced under contract by the local Serum Institute of India (SII), the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, the locally developed Covaxin by Bharat Biotech, and the U.S. Moderna vaccine, emergency use authorization was granted earlier this month for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from the U.S. pharmaceutical company.

Meanwhile, the number of new confirmed cases, which exceeded 410,000 in early May, has steadily decreased and recently stabilized around 40,000. The daily reported deaths, which had been over 4,000, have recently dropped below 1,000. However, in the southern state of Kerala, about 30,000 new cases continue to be reported daily. Kerala authorities are considering strengthening quarantine measures, including imposing nighttime curfews.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.