Four lakh COVID-19 vaccinations for 18-44 age group in three days; highest in Gujarat

NEW DELHI: Covid-19 vaccination for 18-44 age group which started on Saturday has seen a little over 4 lakh jabs administered to people in the category across 12 states in the first three days.

Over the last 24 hours, 2.15 lakh beneficiaries in the age group got the shots.

Gujarat, which is by far ahead of all other states in managing to providing vaccine to the younger lot, has seen 1,08,188 or nearly 25 % of all vaccinations so far for this age group, followed by Rajasthan (75,817) and Maharashtra (73,455).

The only other state where more than 50,000 people in the category have got the shot, is Haryana.

In the country, vaccination for all adult population has started from May 1 under the Centre’s liberalised and decentralised policy amid crippling shortage of vaccines due to which even the prioritised groups are struggling to secure shots for themselves.

Not surprisingly, over the last 24 hours, only 16. 5 lakh vaccine doses were given out, taking the total doses administered to 15.88 crore.

Experts have pointed out that the government needs to aggressively carry out the vaccination drive, which started in phases since mid-January, to effectively control the raging pandemic.

On Monday, the government however said that it has placed fresh orders last weeks for 11 crore doses of covishield and 5 crore doses of Covaxin, expected to be delivered from May through July even though Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech are yet to deliver their first orders fully.

Experts on the other hand have expressed worry over the decline in daily vaccinations as the 7-day average jabs was only 22 million compared to 37 million 4 weeks back at its peak, marking a 40% decline in average daily vaccinations.

So far, only about 3% of eligible adults in India got 2 doses each while less than 13.5 % population has received a single dose.