India hits record 8.8 mn daily vaccinations, five-month low in cases

dpa New Delhi India administered more than 8.8 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine in the past 24 hours, the highest-ever number of vaccinations achieved on...

dpa New DelhiIndia administered more than 8.8 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine in the past 24 hours, the highest-ever number of vaccinations achieved on a single day, the federal Health Ministry said on Tuesday.The new peak in inoculations comes amid a sharp fall in daily infections, which declined to 25,166, the lowest since March 16, the ministry said.“India achieves the highest single-day record in Covid-19 vaccine doses. Yesterday will go down in the history of the world’s largest vaccine drive. Congratulations India,” Health Minister Mansukh Mandavya said on Twitter.India earlier hit a record of 8.6 million doses on June 21, according to data on the Health Ministry website. However, the pace of inoculation fell to between 4 million and 5 million per day on average in the weeks since.Given its huge population, India needs to administer almost 10 million doses a day to achieve its aim of inoculating its adults by December, experts say.Forty-six per cent of adult Indians have received the first dose, while 13 per cent have been fully vaccinated.Overall, more than 554.7 million vaccine doses have been administered under the nationwide vaccination drive that began in January.  India’s overall Covid-19 caseload touched 32.25 million on Tuesday, second only to the United States’ 36.88 million infections.Casualties so far number 432,079 with 437 deaths linked to the virus in the past 24 hours, the ministry said.