NEW DELHI: India administered a record 20.53 lakh doses of Covid vaccines on Friday, the highest in a single day so far with UP accounting for the maximum number of inoculations at over 3.3 lakh doses.
Eight states — UP, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar, Kerala and Karnataka — accounted for 74% of the doses administered. The total count of doses given across the country till Saturday evening stood at over 2.91 crore with another 9.74 lakh doses administered till 7pm.
Over 78.6 lakh beneficiaries aged 60 and above and 13.8 lakh between 45 and 59 years with specific co-morbidities have received shots till Saturday evening. Around 31.7% of the total 2.91 crore doses administered so far have been given to these two age-based prioritised population groups and these would be first shots for the recipients.
While India currently uses two vaccines — Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Serum Institute of India’s Covishield — under restricted emergency use, over half a dozen vaccines are in the pipeline and are going to be in use soon, health minister Harsh Vardhan said on Saturday.
“India has developed two vaccines, which have been given to 71 countries. Many more nations are seeking the vaccines, and these are not little-known nations… Canada, Brazil and other developed countries are using Indian vaccines with great zeal,” Vardhan said.
Some public health experts have expressed concern about variations in the daily count of doses and pointed at the urgent need to ramp up inoculation and increased availability of vaccines is key to augmenting immunisation coverage.
The central government also maintains that it is up to states to increase the daily coverage steadily without impacting the non-Covid essential services and that there is no shortage at present to inoculate the identified priority population.
Officials point out that all states do not have health infrastructure at par. “There are states where the private health system is not so strong or has limited presence. In such states, vaccination sessions are limited to a few days of the week. These states also lack round-the-clock sessions. Therefore, the uptake is less in such states,” an official said.
Of the total 2.91 crore doses, around 53.12 lakh were second doses to health and frontline workers — the count of people fully immunised now. Ten states, including UP, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and West Bengal, account for 69% of the second dose vaccinations.
Vaccination on Friday had picked up after a gap of three days when fewer people were inoculated due to Mahashivratri on March 11. While India first crossed 20 lakh vaccine doses on March 8, it dropped for three consecutive days to a low of 4.8 lakh on March 11 (Thursday).