India vaccinates record number of people on occasion of PM Modi's birthday

On the occasion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday on September 17, India achieved a record landmark in its vaccination campaign against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

In an extraordinary feat, the country vaccinated as many as 25 million citizens, more than three times the average daily total of the past month. It's a number that equals the entire population of Australia, is two-thirds the population of Canada, and five times the entire population of New Zealand, according to the central government, reports Hindustan Times.

"What a remarkable feat!" the government portal MyGovIndia posted on Twitter, pointing out that India managed to vaccinate 25 million (2.5 crore) citizens in under 16 hours.

The record number of vaccines administered by India was a part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s push to the 'Seva and Samarpan' vaccination campaign to honour the occasion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday.

"Every Indian would be proud of today's record vaccination numbers," the Prime Minister said, acknowledging the hard work of doctors, innovators, administrators, nurses, healthcare, and all front-line workers who made the vaccination drive a success.

On the other hand, India on Saturday recorded a fourth straight day rise in coronavirus (Covid-19) cases with 35,662 new samples testing positive for the virus. According to the latest updates in the website of the Union ministry of health and family welfare, active cases stood at 3,40,639 comprising 1.02 per cent of the total number of infections (3,34,17,390). Also, the number of recoveries was lesser than the number of new cases.

Saturday's figures were 3.5 per cent higher than the numbers registered on Friday at 34,403. The country registered over 30,000 cases for the third day in a row. As many as 30,570 infections were recorded on Thursday, while 27,176 people tested positive on Wednesday.

As many as 33,798 people recovered in the last 24 hours, while 281 patients lost their lives to the virus. This took the total recoveries to 3,26,32,222 and related fatalities to 4,44,529 with their corresponding rates touching 97.65 per cent and 1.33 per cent, respectively.

Of all the tallies, Kerala continued to bear the biggest brunt having registered 23,260 new cases and 131 deaths.