India administered 2 billionth (200 crore) doses of Covid-19 vaccine on Sunday, making a history in its fight against the pandemic.

According to COWIN data, total vaccinations reached 2,00,03,73,288, as of 6 pm — it included 101.9 crore first doses, 92.6 crore second doses and 5.53 crore precautionary doses. The feat has been achieved in over 2.63 crore vaccination sessions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the people for showing a remarkable faith in science. “Our doctors, nurses, frontline workers, scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs have played a key role in ensuring a safer planet,” Modi tweeted.

It take about 548 days to cross the 200-crore mark after the vaccination drive started on January 16, 2021. The first 100 crore doses took 279 days, while the second 100 crore milestone was achieved in a slightly shorter period of 269 days. The highest single day vaccination was recorded on September 17, 2021, at 2.5 crore doses.

SNP Singh, National President, Indian Medical Council, said, “This is a testimony to growing public faith on modern medical science and India’s vaccines. As against the initial resistance, today we see there is a rush for getting inoculated. This is a remarkable change in the society. And the Government of India gets a credit for this as they successfully rolled out such a massive vaccination drive.”

Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted saying, “This extraordinary achievement will be etched in history.” The Health Ministry informed that India had embarked on the use of cutting-edge technologies like CoWIN for evaluating geographical coverage, tracking AEFI for vaccines, promoting inclusivity and for providing a single reference point for citizens to follow their vaccination schedule.

The 200 crore doses included 159.44 crore doses of Serum Institute of India (SII)‘s Covishield, 33.48 crore doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, besides other vaccines such as the Russian vaccine Sputnik V and Corbevax developed by Biological E.

Further the COWIN database showed that 27.91 crore doses have been administered to senior citizens above 60 years of age, while a maximum of 111.4 crore doses were administered in the age group of 18-44 years. The minors age group 12-17 years received a total of 17.51 crore doses in total. The age group of 45-60 years received 41.57 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines.

On Sunday total 4.89 lakh doses were administered with most 2.9 lakh doses administered as precaution dose in the age group of 18-59. India's Covid caseload stood at 4.37 crore of which 1.43 lakh were active cases and 4.31 recoveries. Total deaths so far were 5.25 lakh.

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