Maharashtra crosses 100 million milestone in its Covid-19 vaccine drive

Maharashtra, which started the vaccination drive on January 16, has inoculated 68.02 million or 74.38% of the targetted beneficiaries.

MUMBAI: Maharashtra on Tuesday crossed the 100 million milestone in the state’s vaccination drive, next only to Uttar Pradesh which has administered 135 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to its residents.

As Maharashtra crossed the 100 million milestone, Dr Rahul Pandit, Director-critical care, Fortis Hospitals and member, National Covid-19 task force, cautioned against lowering its guard down. (HT photo/Vijay Bate)

According to the CoWIN portal, the number of doses administered till 5pm on Tuesday is 10,00,65,237. Of the inoculation numbers, 6,80,28,164 residents have been administered the first dose while the number of people who have received both doses is 3,20,37,073.

Dr Rahul Pandit, Director-critical care, Fortis Hospitals and member, National Covid-19 task force described the feat as a milestone. “This accomplishment is a fruition of tremendous hard work, strategic acumen and timely intervention by the state and civic authorities, governing bodies, healthcare workers, community caregivers and responsible citizens. However, we must not let our guards down,” said Dr Pandit.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray last week set the target of completing 100% vaccination of its 91.44 million targetted population with the first dose by November 30.

Maharashtra, which started the vaccination drive on January 16, has inoculated 68.02 million till Tuesday which is 74.38% of the targetted beneficiaries. Of them, 32.03 million people in the state have been fully vaccinated.

The state achieved the target of 90 million doses on October 13, while it crossed 50 million mark on August 17. On July 20, it crossed 40 million mark and 10 million mark was achieved on April 11.

The state government has attributed the slow start to initial hiccups in the vaccination drive due to the shortage of doses and the lower allocation of vaccines for the state. These issues were later sorted out.