Coronavirus in India: 1.39 crore doses administered in 2 days

Inoculations on Tuesday crossed the 50-lakh mark with 51.34 lakh doses having been administered till late evening. With this, the tally of total doses administered in the country in the new phase, which began on Monday, rose to 1.39 crore. On Monday, India saw 88.09 lakh doses being administered.

VK Paul, member, health, Niti Aayog, said the numbers were beyond expectations and demonstrated the capacity available to carry out vaccinations on this scale. This was possible because of the country’s national immunisation programme systems and the experience of administering polio doses, Paul said at a Covid-19 briefing of the ministry of health and family welfare on Tuesday.

Of the 88.09 lakh doses administered on Monday, nearly 63.98% or 56.09 doses were administered in rural areas with the remaining 36.32% in urban India. Ten states accounted for majority of the vaccinations carried out on Monday, with Madhya Pradesh topping the list with 17.14 lakh doses administered followed by Karnataka (11.37 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (7.46 lakh), Bihar (5.75 lakh), Haryana (5.15 lakh) and Gujarat (5.15 lakh). Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Assam were the other states in the top ten.

Around 92% of the doses were administered at government hospitals and vaccination centres. Paul expects private hospitals to play a bigger role as vaccine supplies improve. He acknowledged a gender imbalance with men accounting for 53% of the vaccinations and said the government would would work to correct the imbalance.

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the record numbers were the result of coordination, planning and collaboration between the Centre and the states. A 15-day visibility period of the quantum of vaccine doses and the dates on which these would be supplied had helped states plan and get districts ready to administer the doses, he said.