Last Updated on September 4, 2024 by Nivedita
Quick Take
After 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered in India, many people started claiming that India is the first country to have reached the milestone. We fact-checked and found that the claim is false.
The Claim
“India became the first country to give 100 crore doses Jai Ho!” claims one of the tweet. Similar claims were made by other Twitter users too. Archived versions of such posts can be seen here, here and here.
Fact Check
Is India the first country to have administered 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses?
No. It is a false claim.
On 26th August, 2021, China had administered 1 billion (100 crore) vaccine. On that day, India had reached a little over over 60 crore vaccine doses. The data can be checked from the COVID-19 vaccine tracker at Our World in Data map by comparing India and China.
Vaccination data is also maintained for individual countries by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Comparing the data of India and China, we can see that China is much ahead of India in terms of the number of vaccine doses administered.
Another post on social media also claimed that India has administered COVID vaccines to one billion people by October 2021.
India was the not the first country to have achieved the milestone of administering 1 billion vaccine doses. It was second only to China.