Government trashes reports on missing July-end target of vaccine administration
What's the story
The government on Tuesday dismissed media reports that claimed that India will miss the end-July target of administering 50 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses as "ill-informed and misrepresenting" and asserted that over 51.60 crore vaccine doses will be supplied from January to July 31.
"These reports are ill-informed and have clearly misrepresented the facts," the statement from the health ministry said.
Vaccines
Vaccines are supplied to states according to advance allocation plan
It added that the vaccine doses are supplied to the states in accordance with advance allocation plan and they are informed about it in advance. The vaccines are supplied to the states in various schedules throughout the month.
"Therefore, availability of 516 million doses till a particular month-end doesn't mean that every dose supplied till that month is going to be consumed/administered," it said.
Vaccine supply
In total, 45.7cr doses have been supplied so far: Statement
"There would be supplies in pipeline, which should be available for next few days till the next supplies materialize in a particular state/district/sub-district to keep vaccination going on," it said.
"In total, 45.7 crore doses have been supplied to the states and Union territories from January till date, and an additional 6.03 crore doses are expected to be supplied by July 31," it added.
Total vaccines
India has administered a record 44.19 crore doses: Statement
"This will amount to a total of 51.73 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses supplied from January to July 31," it added.
"It should be appreciated that India has crossed the landmark of 440 million (44.19 crore) doses administered, which is the largest number achieved in the world and has been done at quite a brisk pace too," the statement said.
Vaccination
Government endeavor's to vaccinate citizens in shortest possible time: Statement
"Out of 44.19 crore, 9.6 crore are cases where both the doses have been administered," the statement said.
A total of 11.97 crore vaccines were administered in June. In July (as on July 26), 10.62 crore doses in total have been administered.
"It's the government's endeavor to provide vaccination to eligible citizens in the shortest possible time according to the vaccine availability," it said.