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India administered its 1 billionth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, 21 October, passing a major milestone for a country where, just a few months ago, the Delta variant of the virus ripped through.
The occasion was met with a lot of song and dance, with the Centre launching a new song and an audiovisual film to mark the landmark event. Along with that, the largest national flag, weighing 1,400 kg will be hoisted at the Red Fort.
Soon after the country hit the milestone, PM Modi paid a visit to Delhi’s Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital to interact with health workers and vaccine beneficiaries.
But as India celebrates this major milestone, it's also important to remember that millions of people are still waiting to receive the vaccine and according to official figures, we have only fully vaccinated 30 percent of our nearly 1.4 billion population. And this statistic does not include children under 18, who make up nearly 40 percent of the population.
Even though 74 percent of the population is vaccinated with one dose, the issue of vaccine hesitancy still exists, with at least 10 percent of the population according to a recent survey not planning on taking the vaccine at all.
What hurdles is India currently facing in our vaccination drive, and nine months later, what lessons have we learned from them?
To analyse this, for today’s episode, we spoke with Anjela Taneja, who is the Inequality Campaign Lead at Oxfam India and Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, an epidemiologist and a public policy expert. Tune in!
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