Over 36 lakh (36,37,030) COVID-19 vaccine doses will be released to States/UTs within the next three days, which will be in addition to 94.47 lakh COVID doses (94,47,614) currently available with the States/Union Territories, according to a statement released by the Health Ministry on Wednesday.
It said that the Centre has so far provided nearly 17.02 crore vaccine doses (17,02,42,410) to States/UTs free of cost and, of this, the total consumption including wastage is 16,07,94,796 doses (as per data available at 8 a.m. on May 5).
“Implementation of accelerated Phase-3 strategy of Covid-19 vaccination started from 1st May 2021. Registration for the new eligible population groups has commenced since 28th April. Potential beneficiaries can either register directly on the CoWIN portal (cowin.gov.in) or through the Aarogya Setu app,” said the Ministry.
It added that the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 16 crore on Wednesday.
“India took only 109 days to achieve this milestone. In comparison, the U.S. took 111 days, while China required 116 days to achieve similar figures. Cumulatively, 16,04,94,188 vaccine doses have been administered through 23,66,349 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 a.m. on Wednesday. These include 94,62,505 Health Care Workers (HCWs) who have taken the 1st dose and 63,22,055 HCWs who have taken the 2nd dose, 1,35,65,728 Frontline Workers (FLWs) (1st dose), 73,32,999 FLWs (2nd dose), 6,71,285 beneficiaries under 18-45 age group 5,29,50,584 (1st dose beneficiaries) and 1,23,85,466 2nd dose beneficiaries more than 60 years old and 5,33,94,353 (1st dose) and 44,09,213 (2nd dose) beneficiaries aged 45 to 60 years,” said the statement.
More than 14 lakh vaccination doses were administered in the last 24 hours, it added.