Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday expressed satisfaction at the pace of Covid-19 vaccination in this week, his office said. He was holding a review meeting on the progress of vaccination and the Covid-19 situation in the country.
The officials also said that they were talking with state governments to explore and implement innovative ways to reach out to residents for vaccination. The prime minister then spoke about the need to involve non-government organisations and other bodies to boost such efforts.
In a statement, the prime minister’s office said that Modi was told that 3.77 crore vaccine doses were administered in the last six days. Officials also told the prime minister that 128 districts have vaccinated 50% of their 45 years and above population and 16 districts have inoculated 90% residents of the same age group. On this, Modi expressed satisfaction and stressed on the need to carry forward this momentum.
India had achieved a record high vaccination of more than 90 lakh doses on Monday but the figures dropped to 54.22 lakh the next day. The daily vaccination tally has remained between 60-70 lakh for the rest of the week, government data showed.
A Scroll.in report on Tuesday showed that Monday’s “record vaccination” was enabled by a slowdown in inoculations in some Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states in the preceding days.
During the meeting, the officials also informed the prime minister about the vaccine supply in the upcoming months and efforts to increase production. Earlier on Saturday, the Centre had told the Supreme Court that 135 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines will be available by December 2021. However, this projection is 81 lakh less than the Union health ministry’s May estimation of 216 crore.
Modi also directed officials to work with the states to ensure that the pace of testing does not fall as it was an important aspect to track and contain rising infections in any region.
Officers also told the prime minister about the “rising interest” in CoWIN platform globally, the statement said. “PM said that efforts should be made to help all countries, who have expressed interest, with India’s rich tech expertise in the form of Cowin platform,” it added.
India has so far administered 31,65,59,599 Covid-19 vaccine doses with 5,48,32,451 residents getting both shots, according to CoWIN data. Meanwhile, India recorded 48,698 new coronavirus cases and 1,183 deaths on Saturday morning. With this, the country’s overall count of infections since the pandemic broke out in 2020 rose to 3,01,83,143. The toll increased to 3,94,493.
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