India passes 1B vaccine doses threshold

India has crossed a significant milestone as the country celebrates administering 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses. 

Despite a devastating second wave of infections earlier this year that drove an increase in its death toll, along with problems with vaccine supply, around half of India’s nearly 1.4 billion people have now received at least one dose of the vaccine, The Associated Press reported, citing Our World in Data. Around 20 percent have received both doses.

While the government is aiming for all of India’s 944 million adults to get vaccinated this year, millions of Indians under 18 — almost 40 percent of the population — have not received a single shot.

Hailing the achievement, Prime Minister Modi said the country was witnessing “the triumph of Indian science, enterprise and collective spirit.”

According to The New York Times, the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, has provided more than 80 percent of the doses administered in the country.

While the vaccination drive’s success has helped bring down the infection rate in India, experts caution that the South Asian country needs to ramp up the delivery of second shots in order to ensure another outbreak doesn’t occur.

Currently, the gap between the first and the second dose is 16 weeks.

“Ramping up the second dose is an important priority,” V.K. Paul, the head of the country’s COVID-19 task force, told the AP last week. 

“We would like to see this number go up. Complete coverage is absolutely critical,” Paul added.

On Thursday, India confirmed more than 18,400 new cases and 160 deaths. This is a turnaround from April, when the country was the first in the world to record over 400,000 daily cases.

More than 450,000 people have died from COVID-19 in India, which has recorded around 34 million infections, according to its Health Ministry. However, critics say that the real death toll is much higher, the Times noted. 

India recently reopened to fully vaccinated foreign travelers who are traveling on chartered flights, 19 months after the country shut its borders.