TMC & Congress downplay India's accelerated COVID jabs; raises 10% double vaccination

As India clocks over 1 crore COVID jabs twice in the past five days, Opposition MPs Kapil Sibal and Derek O'Brien on Thursday pointed out that only 10.6% of the population had been double vaccinated. In comparison to Israel, Italy and Germany where the vaccination rate has crossed over 60%, the MPs slammed the Centre's 'propaganda' over the accelerated pace of vaccination. India has vaccinated 66,34,57,477 doses till date of which 51,09,85,828 have received the first dose and 15,24,71,649 have received both doses.

Opposition MPs dismiss India's accelerated vaccination

On Wednesday, India crossed administering 66 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses the Union health ministry said. While on Wednesday India only administered 68 lakh doses, the nation administered 1.09 crore COVID vaccine doses on Tuesday crossing the one crore mark in 24 hours - the second time in four weeks. Across India, more than 50% of the Indian population has received the first dose. 

In a boost to the nation's vaccination drive, DCGI granted Biological E Limited permission to conduct phase 2/3 clinical trials of its indigenous COVID-19 vaccine 'Corbevax' in children aged between 5 and 18 years.  So far, Zydus Cadila's needle-free ZyCOV-D has received Emergency Use Authorisation from DCGI, making it the first vaccine for the age group of 12-18 years in the country. Meanwhile, the Phase 2/3 clinical trials of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin in the age group 2 to 18 years are underway, while SII's Covovax too have been conducting phase 2/3 trials on children aged 2 to 17 years with certain conditions.

Other vaccines in India

Apart from these vaccines which will cater to children, Johnson & Johnson's single-dose Janssen vaccine has also been given approval for Emergency Use in India.  With Janssen vaccine, India's vaccine basket has expanded to six - Covishield, Covaxin, Sputnik V, ZyCOV-D, Moderna vaccine (mRNA-1273) and now J&J's Janssen vaccine. All of the above vaccines have been proved to be effective against the prevalent Delta variant of Coronavirus.

India's COVID situation

While scientists have been warning of an imminent third wave of COVID in October, India has recorded a 47,092 cases on Thursday - a two month high. India's total tally of cases rose to 3,28,57,937, while active cases have increased to 3,89,583, according to Union health ministry data updated on Thursday and the death toll has climbed to 4,39,529 with 509 more fatalities. The weekly positivity rate has been recorded at 2.62 per cent and case fatality rate stands at 1.34 per cent, the data stated.