The Indian government today asserted that over 51.60 crore vaccine doses will be supplied from January to July 31.
Rubbishing media reports that claimed that India will miss the end-July target of administering 50 crore Covid vaccine doses as “ill-informed and misrepresenting”, the Indian government today asserted that over 51.60 crore vaccine doses will be supplied from January to July 31.
In a statement issued by health ministry referring to recent media reports alleging that the country will miss the target of administering half-a-billion (50 crore) doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by July-end, it pointed out that the government had stated in May that it would make 516 million (51.60 crore) vaccine shots available by the end of this month.
“These reports are ill-informed and have clearly misrepresented the facts,” the statement said.
“The figures of 516 million vaccine doses might have been picked up from various sources which informed about the likely availability of the vaccine doses from January to July-end,” it added.
“The facts are that a total of more than 516 million (over half-billion) vaccine doses will indeed be supplied from January 2021 to 31st July, 2021,” the health ministry said.
The vaccine doses are supplied to the states in accordance with the advance allocation plan and they are informed about it in advance, it further added. The vaccines are supplied to the states in various schedules throughout the month.
“Therefore, availability of 516 million doses till end of a particular month does not mean that every dose supplied till that month is going to be consumed/administered.”
“There would be supplies in pipeline, which should be available for next few days till the next supplies of vaccine doses materialise in a particular state/district/sub-district to keep vaccination going on,” the statement said.
Till date, a total of 45.7 crore doses have been supplied to the states and Union territories from January, and additional 6.03 crore doses are expected to be supplied by July 31. This will amount to a total of 51.73 crore 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. Out of these, 9.6 crore are cases where both the doses have been administered,” the statement said.
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