World didn't think India could achieve 100 cr vaccination mark: Randeep Guleria

New Delhi [India], October 21 (ANI): As India achieved the landmark of administring over 100 crore COVID-19 vaccine jabs, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, said that achievement is something the world did not think India could achieve.
Speaking to ANI, Guleria said, "This is a great achievement every Indian should proud of it. This is something the world didn't think India could achieve. A lot of people were sceptical when we started the vaccination drive in January but in 9 months' time, we have achieved this target of 1 billion doses."
"This is achieved because of multiple factors--- the leadership of the Prime Minister, who monitored this very closely; the industry which made the vaccine and make sure enough doses were available; health care workers who delivered one billion doses to our population of our country both in urban and rural areas even in remote parts. The IT technology, the CoWIN app which helped in many ways. This is a big achievement for the country and this will go long way in the battle against COVID-19," he added.
AIIMS director said that now the target is to administer at least one vaccine dose to the entire adult population by the end of this year.
"We have a target of vaccinating adult population by one dose at end of this year. Now, we are moving in that direction. We are on our target. I am very confident to achieve the target to vaccinate all adults with one doze at the end of this year. This helps us in fighting with this pandemic, preventing severe disease and death in our citizens," said Guleria.
Talking about the vaccination of children, he said both the Zydus Covid and Bharat Biotech vaccines are under trial.
"Vaccination for children have been approved both the Zydus Covid and Bharat Biotech vaccine but we have to look at it in a manner that we should first prioritise to children who has high risk of getting Covid infection and dying because of disease. We should prioritise whether they are children or adults so that we protect them decrease hospitalization and death after that we should focus on children, as can spread the disease and we have to break the chain of transmission. And to break the chain of transmission it's important to vaccinate children. Children might have the mild disease but they can carry it to their homes and the elderly at home can get severally illness," he added.
On the third wave of COVID, he said that there may be an increase in the number of cases but the majority will be mild illness and may not have that much hospitalization.
"We should be prepared for the worst and that preparation is already on and lots of things have been done and we are ready but at the same time. We will not see a huge increase in hospitalisation and death, we may see an increase in the number of cases but the majority will be mild illness and may not have that much of hospitalization," Guleria added.
India has hit the milestone of administering 100 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines on Thursday.
India took 85 days to touch the 10-crore vaccination mark, 45 more days to cross the 20-crore mark and 29 more days to reach the 30-crore mark, revealed the Union Health Ministry data.
It mentioned the country took 24 days to reach the 40-crore mark from 30-crore doses and then 20 more days to surpass the 50-crore vaccination mark on August 6.
"It then took 76 days to go past the 100-crore mark."
The top five states, which have administered the highest number of doses are Uttar Pradesh followed by Maharashtra, West Bengal, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. (ANI)