18-44 age group vaccination yet to gather pace in most states including Nagaland

Representational Purpose only (Image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay)

Representational Purpose only (Image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay)

Just over 20 lakh beneficiaries in the age group vaccinated so far, informs Health Ministry

Morung Express News
Dimapur | May 10

With shortages and other issues, vaccination of the 18-44 age group is yet to gather pace in most states or union territories (UTs) including Nagaland and just over 20 lakh doses have been administrated since the start of phase III vaccination drive for the category on May 1.  

A total of 20,31,854 doses have been administrated to the 18-44 age group, highlighted data shared by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in an official release on May 10. A total of 2, 46,269 beneficiaries in the age group received their first dose today, it added. 

However, the cumulative list provided by the Ministry revealed that the process has been started only in 30, out of 37 States/UTs. 

Further, in most locations, the vaccination process seemed to have started only as a mere formality, with 17 States/UTs yet to administrator 10,000 doses so far.   

Out of this, Chandigarh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Tripura have administrated only 2 doses in the 18-44 age group while it was just 1 dose in Puducherry.

In four states/UTs, it was below 100 - Ladakh (86), Jharkhand (82), Himachal Pradesh (14) and Uttarakhand (21) while it was lesser than 1,000 doses in Andaman & Nicobar Islands (904), Andhra Pradesh (520), Telangana (500), and Kerala (209). Meanwhile, only in 6 states, the vaccination of doses were over 1 lakh with Maharashtra leading the tally at 4,36,302, followed by 3,16,767 in  Rajasthan and 3,02,153 in Delhi.  (See Table)

Nagaland still awaiting vaccines 

As reported earlier, Nagaland has placed order for 36,850 doses of COVIDSHEILD for kicking off the 18-44 age group vaccination process but the consignment is yet to reach the State.

We have not received the vaccines despite full payment and the vaccination for the said age group will start only after the doses arrive, a health official reiterated today. 

However, the official said that vaccination for some “high risk” frontline group will be started ‘very soon’ even if they are under 45 from the stock of vaccines available with the state.

The DoHFW on May 10 also issued directive to Chief Medical Office/Medical Superintendent of all district hospitals to prioritise vaccination of personnel of certain departments or establishments and to inform the concerned entities regarding the same. 

The category included personnel from Banks, NST, NSRLM, LPG, OIL, FCI, Postal Service, Journalists and “high risk” group involved in quarantine centers.   

According to another MoHFW release on Monday, out of over 3.36 lakh doses provided to Nagaland by the Centre ‘free of cost’, a total of 1,00,308 were still available as on May 10 at 8AM.  The availability of doses may be lower in Nagaland as there is a time-lag in reconciling offline sessions on CoWIN portal.  

Over 17 crore doses administrated across India 

The Government of India has so far provided nearly 18 crore vaccine doses (17,93,57,860) to States/UTs free of cost and the total consumption including wastages till 8AM of May 10 was 16,89,27,797 doses, it said. 

More than 1 crore COVID vaccine doses (1,04,30,063) are still available with the States/UTs to be administered and more than 9 lakh (9,24,910) vaccine doses will be received in addition by the States/UTs within the next 3 days, the release maintained. 

India’s cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administration crossed over 17 crore (17,01,76,603) through 24,70,799 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am on Monday, it added.