FACT CHECK: India isn’t the first country to administer 1 billion Covid vaccine jabs

CLAIM

Several BJP leaders and spokesperson put out tweets from their verified handles to claim that India is the first country to achieve the feat of administering 1 billion Covid vaccine doses.

Among those making this claim include BJP’s National General Secretary, CT Ravi, BJP Haryana’s state president Om Prakash Dhankar and BJP Uttar Pradesh’s official spokesperson Alok Awasthi.




Another unverified Twitter user ‘PIB in Nagaland’ made this claim attributing it to Union Power Minister RK Singh. However, in the video clip tweeted by this handle, Singh made no such claim.


Dhankar also made this claim on his official Facebook page.

TRUTH

India is not the first country to administer 1 billion covid vaccine doses.

China is the first country to hit the 1 billion covid vaccine mark. It achieved this milestone on Jun 19, 2021.

VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGY

Using relevant keywords, we found a Times of India post dated Jun 20, 2021which reported that China crossed the 1 billion vaccination mark in June itself.

Another Times of India report dated Sep 16, 2021mentions that China has fully inoculated 1 billion of its population.

‘China has fully vaccinated more than 1 billion people against Covid-19 -- over 70% of its total population -- powering ahead of the US and Europe despite having no immediate plans to ease some of the strictest pandemic measures in the world,’ the report said.

A report dated June 20, 2021 from South China Morning Post confirms that China achieved the feat of administering 1 billion doses in June.

A worldwide vaccine tracker from ‘ourworldindata’ confirms that China crossed 1 billion vaccine mark on Jun 19, 2021.

On the other hand, India administered its billionth dose of Covid-19 vaccine early on Oct 21, 2021.

On the same day China’s inoculation figure stood at 2,240.55 million (over 2.2 billion) doses, as per China’s National Health Commission.

VERDICT

Times Fact Check has found that the claim of India being the first country to administer 1 billion doses of covid-19 vaccine is false.