Explained: How India missed its 100 per cent vaccination target

A pedestrian walks past a wall mural highlighting the benefits of vaccination and urging people to get vaccinated, in Mumbai. Pic/ AFP

The BJP-led central government on Friday missed its target of fully vaccinating its entire adult population by the end of 2021. The number of eligible beneficiaries was 94 crore, of which 61 per cent have been fully vaccinated till December 25.

On December 25, in a national address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "Over 61 per cent of India's population has received both doses of the vaccine and 90 per cent has got the first dose."

On May 28, Union Minister of Human Resource and Development Prakash Javadekar, who was then the Information and Broadcasting minister, had announced that by December, 216 crore doses of the vaccine will be ready and India will be fully vaccinated.

The Centre had also told the Supreme Court in June that it expects to vaccinate the entire adult population by year-end.

In the past few months, the Health Ministry hasn't spoken about the 100 per cent target in any of its press conferences.

How is India's vaccination drive faring?

In September, the country's vaccination rate was about 81 lakh doses a day. The highest number of vaccinations (2.5 crore doses) was given on the Prime Minister's birthday on September 17. The number of cumulative Covid-19 vaccine doses in the country crossed the 100-crore mark on October 21, however, there has been a decline in daily doses compared to September, with 54 lakh in October and 57 lakh in November.

According to the data on Centre's CoWIN dashboard, there has been a decrease in first and second doses being administered in the month of December with 5,40, 07,780 in the first week (December 4 to 10) and 3,45,47, 989 in the New Year week ( December 25-31).

The vaccination drive initially faced issues of raw material shortage, logistical issues and vaccine hesitancy. Although the supply concerns have been resolved, experts believe vaccine hesitancy could be the new challenge.

On November 3, the Centre had launched the ‘Har Ghar Dastak' campaign for at-home vaccinations. In a month, the first dose of vaccinations increased by only 5.9 per cent while the second dose rose by 11.7 per cent, according to the Health Ministry.

How many vaccines do we have?

The country is currently administering Covishield, Covaxin and Russia's Sputnik. As per news reports, the Serum Institute of India (SII) was producing 250-275 million Covishield doses a month till November, while 50-60 million doses of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin are being produced monthly. Both companies have reached about 90 per cent of their present production capacity, as per Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar.

On December 8, however, SII said it's cutting its production capacity by 50 per cent as it had no further orders from the Centre. Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya recently said in Parliament that states had 170 million doses in stock as of December 20.

It should be noted that Centre recently announced jabs for children aged 15-18 and booster doses for health workers and those above 60. Earlier this month, SII chief Adar Poonawalla had said the company has 500 million does in stock in case the Centre decides to give booster doses.

Are we still exporting vaccines?

Vaccine demand in the country slowed down in November and daily cases started falling which made SII resume exporting doses to Covax, the global vaccine-sharing programme.

About 700 million vaccines have been given to 144 countries by Covax as of December 14, out of them, 40 million were provided by SII.

India reported 16,764 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours. Omicron cases rose to 1,270.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday criticised the Centre for "missing" the double vaccination target, saying the government's claims to achieve 100 per cent vaccination turned out to be "Jumla".

"The Central government had promised 100 per cent vaccination by the end of 2021... today is the last day of the year, the country is still far from the vaccination target. One more 'Jumla' got shattered," the Congress leader tweeted.