Over 2.1mn people vaccinated in 6 countries

Since the first ever shot of coronavirus vaccine was syringed into human body in July, more than 2.1 million people have so far been inoculated in six countries.

The countries are – United States, United Kingdom, China, Russia, Canada and Israel, says a Bloomberg report.

Although the vaccination programme began several months ago, it gained momentum recently with the authorisation of the vaccine candidates developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

This is, no doubt, the start of the biggest vaccination campaign in history and one of the largest logistical challenges ever undertaken.

In the United States, the vaccination programme began on 14 December with health-care workers, and so far 614,117 doses have been administered there, according to a nationwide tally from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those numbers are expected to surge in coming days with the distribution of a second vaccine by Moderna Inc.

China turned out to be the frontrunner in the race for vaccination with around 650,000 vaccinated people in the country.

Aside from those, 500,000 shots have been administered in the UK till 21 December while 320,000 doses in Russia, 16,929 doses in Canada and 10,000 doses in Israel.  

Canada and the UK are among the countries that have authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and it's expected to get emergency clearance in the EU as soon as next week.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the shot from Moderna were both found to reduce coronavirus infections by 95% in trials of tens of thousands of volunteers.

China and Russia authorized their own shots in July and August, before they'd been fully tested. Since then, they've vaccinated hundreds of thousands of people.