COVID-19: Maharashtra crosses 1-crore vaccination mark; 1,00,38,421 doses administered so far

Mumbai: Maharashtra has administered COVID-19 vaccine doses to over one crore people so far, a senior health official said on Sunday. The vaccination drive began on 16 January this year across the country and is currently underway for front-line and health care workers, and people aged 45 years and above. “We have crossed one crore doses today. Till today noon, we have administered 1,00,38,421 doses,” Maharashtra’s principal secretary (health) Pradeep Vyas said in a statement. Amid reports of Maharashtra facing an acute shortage of the doses, hampering its immunisation drive, Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday said the state has received 1.10 crore doses of the anti-COVID-19 vaccines so far. Apart from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan are the two other states that have received more than one crore doses, Javadekar had said. On the blame game between the Centre and the state government over the availability of vaccine doses, the BJP leader had said this was not the right time to do politics. Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope had alleged that many states, which are smaller than Maharashtra in terms of population and the number of patients, have received more doses of vaccine.