Scott Morrison congratulates PM Modi for achieving 100 cr vaccine feat

As India crossed the historic mark of 100 crore vaccination doses on Thursday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison also congratulated his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Narendra Modi for administering 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to the population. Calling it a "huge achievement", Morrison tweeted a picture of him with PM Modi and asserted that India and Australia are working together side by side for expanding vaccine access across the Indo-Pacific. 

Apart from him, a string of global leaders extended their best wishes and congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for the landmark milestone. Among them, the first foreign dignitary to congratulate India on this achievement was Bhutan Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji along with Prime Minister Lotay Tshering.

Later, WHO's South Asia regional director, Poonam Khetrapal Singh, and WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also congratulated India for crossing 100 crore vaccinations followed by the US embassy, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih among others. Taking pride in it, PM Modi individually thanked each one of them for their best wishes. 

Earlier in the day, PM Modi along with several Union Ministers also took to Twitter for congratulating the nation on this achievement and further aimed to inoculate more people by the end of 2021 as a part of its fight against COVID-19. 

World's largest vaccination drive

Meanwhile, India currently marches beyond the historic 1 billion mark and has administered over 1,00,62,86,000 vaccine doses at 9:28 AM on Friday. 

The nationwide vaccination drive which commenced on January 16, 2021, has now been expanded to people from all age groups starting from healthcare workers, followed by state and central police personnel, armed force personnel, home guard, civil defence, and disaster management volunteers, municipal workers, prison staff, PRI staff, revenue workers, railway protection force, election staff and the finally the general citizens of the country.  

COVID-19 vaccinations were made available for the general public from March 21 including people above the age of 60 and also for certain above 45 with specified health conditions. Later, it was expanded to the age group of 45 and above from April 1 followed by people above 18 years from May 1.

Image: PTI/AP