Is The Covid-19 Vaccine Story Over?

India claims vaccines are no longer an issue in the battle against COVID-19, but a host of developing nations would disagree

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THE BIG number in the COVID-19 fight was splashed by India on July 17, when the government announced that it had administered two billion doses of vaccination against the coronavirus. It is a humungous figure and a moment of satisfaction, if not celebration, for the government, which has been under the scanner globally for the high mortality rates in the pandemic. World Health Organization (WHO) demographers and epidemiologists believe that an estimated 3.2 million Indians died in the pandemic between June 2020 and July 2021, most of them during the second wave last year. They reject New Delhi's official death toll of around 480,000.

India now appears to be better protected against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, because a huge number of Indians, a total 927 million, are vaccinated. According to Our World In Data, which tracks the progress of the coronavirus, 75 per cent of the population has received at least one jab of the two-dose vaccines used in the country, while 68 per cent are fully vaccinated. A glance at the global data will show how well India has fared on this front, compared with vaccination rates in other parts of the developing world. In low-income countries, the share is dismal, with only 21 per cent of the population getting one dose. Africa has predictably posted the slowest vaccination rate.