After a consistent increase in monthly Covid vaccination in India for four months, the pace of the exercise in October has dropped to a three-month low, the union health ministry data shows.
Since June, the monthly vaccination rate had been going up every month and was a record each month until September. Against 18.38 crore in August and 23.60 crore in September, October recorded 17.29 crore doses administered, the statistics reveal.
In October, India completed the milestone of 100 crore doses delivered and until Monday morning, the country had administered 106.31 crore shots. Of these, over 73 crore were first doses and nearly 33 crore were second doses.
India started its vaccination drive against the novel coronavirus on January 16 and opened it for all above 18 years from May 1. Initially, the pace of vaccination was slow due to several reasons. However, after June it started gaining momentum and nearly 12 crore doses were administered that month. In July, this increased to over 13.45 crore.
Collectively, August and September were responsible for nearly 45 per cent of the total vaccination drive. These were the months when the country was expecting the third wave of the coronavirus infection. However, the daily cases have dropped drastically over the past few weeks.
On Sunday, India completed the 289th day of the vaccination drive.
The health ministry data on Monday morning said that the Centre has supplied more than 112 crore vaccine doses to states and union territories so far and over 13 crore balance and unutilised doses are still available with the states/UTs to administer.
Amid the drop in inoculation speed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a review meeting with districts having low vaccination coverage on Wednesday. As per a statement from the PMO, the meeting will include districts with less than 50 per cent coverage of the first dose and low coverage of the second dose.
“Prime Minister will interact with District Magistrates of over 40 districts in Jharkhand, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, and other States with districts having low vaccination coverage. Chief Ministers of these States will also be present on the occasion,” the statement said.
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