Govt: 260mn jabs provided so far, 15.3mn unused

The Union ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Sunday that the Centre has provided more than 26 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines to states and Union territories, of which 1.53 crore (15,379,233) are still available.

“More than 260 million (266,484,350) vaccine doses have been provided to states/uts so far, through the Government of India (free of cost channel) and through the direct state procurement category. Of this, the total consumption, including wastages is 251,266,637 doses,” said the ministry in a statement issued on Sunday.

Furthermore, 448,760 vaccine doses are in the pipeline and will be received by the states/uts within the next three days, said the Union Health Ministry.

Notably, implementation of the “Liberalized and Accelerated Phase-iii” strategy of Covid-19 vaccination has started from May 1, 2021.

The Union Health Ministry has informed that around 253,195,048 Covid vaccine doses have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive. Of this, the total consumption, including wastages, is 251,266,637 doses, reveals the data available at 8 am on Sunday.

Last week, the Union government changed its vaccine policy and said it would once again be in charge of sourcing vaccines and allocating them to the states (the policy before May 1, when it allowed states to procure directly from suppliers).

Of the total vaccines available, 75% are to be reserved for this, with the remaining 25% available to te private sector (the 25% for the private sector was also a change introduced starting May 1). The new policy is to start from June 21, until which, the current policy (50% sourced and allocated by the Centre, for 45+ age group; 25% sourced by states, for 18-44 age group; 25% sourced by private hospitals) will continue.

As per the CO-WIN dashboard, of the 36,116 sites conducting Covid vaccination, 1,587, or 4% , are in the private sector.

According to a June 4 Union health ministry statement, in the month of May, a total of 74 million doses were available for vaccination. “Out of these, about 18.5 million doses were earmarked for procurement by the private hospitals. The private hospitals have been able to procure 12.9 million doses in the month, out of which they administered 2.2 million doses.”

On June 10, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan chaired a meeting with the states and Union territories.

The progress of vaccination was reviewed at the meeting in light of the revised guidelines for implementation of the national Covid-19 vaccination programme and recent advisories.

Less than adequate private sector participation in the Covid-19 vaccination drive was highlighted at the meeting.

Meanwhile, with 80,834 Covid cases in the last 24 hours, India continued its declining trend of new infections and reported the lowest single-day count in 71 days, the union ministry of health and family welfare said on Sunday.

The new cases pushed the Covid case tally in the country to 29,439,989.

India has been witnessing a continuous fall in the active caseload and the current active number of Covid-19 cases stands at 1,026,159 with a net decrease of 54,531 cases in the last 24 hours. The weekly positivity rate further dropped to less than 5 per cent and currently stands at 4.74 per cent while the daily positivity rate stands at 4.25 per cent today. It has remained less than 10 per cent for 20 consecutive days now.

According to the Union Health Ministry, a total of 3,303 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 3,70,384 in the country.

As many as 1,32,062 patients recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries in the country to 2,80,43,446. With this, the recovery rate increases to 95.26 per cent.