In a span of 15 days, India inches closer to four million inoculation mark

India on Sunday recorded a total of 37,44,334 vaccinations- after the very first vaccination drive in the country was launched on January 16, as per the Union Health
Ministry’s data released on Sunday.

The currently authorised vaccine candidates in the country are Covishield, produced by Pune-based Serum Institute of India, and Covaxin, produced by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.

The aforementioned vaccination mark indicates more than 3.7 million inoculations being performed in about a period of 16 days.

On Saturday, 

2,44,307 people were vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the Health Ministry.

The country recorded its first virus case on January 30, 2020, and is currently the second-worst coronavirus hit nation in the world after US.

The outbreak was first located in December 2019, in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

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Till now, India has recorded 1,07,46,183 COVID-19 cases and 1,54,274 deaths.

Covishield follows the mRNA (Messenger RNA) technology in which the vaccine candidate, occupying a host cell, eventually turns it into a factory of antibodies, so to say, and upon future instances of coming into contact with the respective pathogen, releases fresh antibodies.

Bharat’s Biotech’s Covaxin, on the other hand, uses an inactive vaccine developed from the Indian strain of the novel coronavirus.

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Covaxin, as of yet, has not been approved for inoculation. Bharat
Biotech had earlier announced in late December that they would be producing the
vaccine on a mass scale in the second quarter of 2021. The company has also
warned people with physical conditions such as Bleeding disorders and fever as
well as pregnant women to not get the jab.