Almost 24 crore doses per month needed to meet Decembe target of vaccinating adult population in India

New Delhi: India has set a target to vaccinate its entire population above 18 years of age by December this year. To meet this target, a total of 1.88 billion doses of vaccine will have to be administered in the country, of which 1.67 billion or 89 percent of the doses are still to be done. This means that 238 crore doses will have to be administered every month in the country from June, otherwise India may fall behind its target.

If the vaccine is to be given to those below the age of 18 years in India, then 2.51 billion doses are needed for the entire population from June to the end of this year, or 359 million doses should be administered every month from June itself.

As of May 31, 215 crore doses of vaccine have been given in the country, which is the third highest number of doses given in any country. India is only behind the US and China in this matter.

According to the data available on the Co-WIN app, India has so far vaccinated 38 lakh people per day at the fastest rate.

According to the central government, 12 crore doses will be provided in the month of June. This will take 40 lakh doses every day. However, if India vaccinates at this pace, it will take till 23 July 2022 to vaccinate the entire adult population of the country.

How fast should vaccination be done?

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said during the press conference that there is a plan to give vaccine to the country's population by December this year. However, where India needs 238 million doses for this from the month of June, at present only 120 million doses will be available this month. This simply means that in July, vaccination will have to be done faster than before and at that time 258 million people will have to be vaccinated every month to complete the vaccination in adults. If a population below 18 is also to be vaccinated, 39.8 doses will have to be administered every month.

However, once the supply of the vaccine increases, the target of immunization in the country can be met by December. It is clear from the analysis of the data that if 274 million doses are supplied every month by the month of August, then the vaccination of adult population can be completed by December.

On Tuesday, it was told by the government that in the months of July and August, 1 crore people will be vaccinated every day in the country. If India has to vaccinate the entire adult population by December, it will have to vaccinate more than 91 lakh people a day. This also means that by October, the supply of vaccines should increase to 626 million every month.