'Will supply 12 crore vaccines this month': Centre asks states to achieve high vaccination rate

NEW DELHI: Clarifying on the major fall in daily Covid vaccination over the past week, the Centre on Wednesday urged the states to pronounce their specific needs to achieve a high vaccination rate.

The Centre also said that it will supply states with over 12 crore vaccine doses this month, nearly 2.2 crore of which have already reached states.  

The daily Covid vaccination in the country has come down by 32% in the last week as compared to the week preceding it. On this, the Union Health Ministry said that it is informing states much in advance about the doses that will be available during the month including the supply to private hospitals.

“The states have been advised to plan their Covid Vaccination sessions based on the availability of the Covid vaccines,” said the ministry in a statement.

Based on the discussion with the manufacturers, the government had communicated to all states that they will receive more than 12 crore doses of the Covid vaccine in July and till Wednesday morning, over 2.19 crore doses have already been supplied from this month’s quota, it added.

The states are also being informed adequately in advance of the supply of Covid vaccines being sent to them, the ministry also said, adding that all states have also been requested to share likely indicative demand in case more doses of vaccine are required by them in view of the increased coverage.

The daily Covid vaccinations in India, so far, have remained rather erratic and the numbers, instead of showing upward trends, have been fluctuating.

For instance, on June 21, when the Centre took over the 25% quota from states and started supplying 75% of the total vaccines to government hospitals, the daily vaccination crossed the 85 lakh mark but has come down since then.

On Tuesday just about 42 lakh Covid19 vaccine doses were administered in the country while the experts have pointed out that the daily vaccinations should be 90 lakh if India has to vaccinate all its  94 crore adult population by the year-end.