India says it will meet end-July domestic vaccine supply target

The health ministry stated on Tuesday that India would reach its goal of distributing more than half a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to states by the end of July 2021 but added not all doses may be administered by then.

Last month, the government told India's supreme court that 516 million doses will be accessible by the end of July, a significant step toward its aim of inoculating all the country's projected adult population of 944 million by the end of 2021.

According to Reuters, India would not be able to deliver all those injections unless daily immunizations were increased to 14 million doses. On June 21, daily inoculations reached a national high of 9.2 million doses but have subsequently dropped.

"The facts are that from January 2021 to July 31, 2021, a total of more than 516 million vaccination doses will be provided," the health ministry stated in a statement.

“Vaccines are given out at different times throughout the month. As a result, the availability of 516 million doses till the end of a month does not imply that every dose given until then will be consumed/administered.”

It claimed 457 million doses had already been given out and that 60.3 million more will be handed out by the end of the month.

Since mid-January, India has provided almost 438 million doses, the highest in the world after China but fewer than several other nations in terms of population.

According to the government's vaccination website dashboard.cowin.gov.in, 94 million individuals - or 10% of the adult population—have received the necessary two doses.

In the last 24 hours, the world's second-most populated country recorded 29,689 new coronavirus cases, the lowest daily increase since March 17, bringing the total to 31.44 million. There have been >420,000 deaths reported.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.