New Delhi, August 20:
India had administered at least 571 million Covid vaccine doses by Thursday, August 19. Elsewhere, a study involving 350,000 people in the UK said the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine appears to decline faster than that of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab.
Meanwhile, by 7pm on Thursday, 571,671,264 vaccine doses were given across the states and UTs. As many as 4,884,440 doses were administered on the day. Of this, 3,635,752 beneficiaries were vaccinated with the first dose and 1,248,688 beneficiaries received the second dose of vaccine.
In the 18-45 age group, 2,666,831 were given the first dose while 601,437 doses were given as the second dose on the day. Cumulatively, 211,311,218 persons in this age group across the country have received their first dose and 17,943,325 have received their second dose since the start of Phase-3 of the vaccination drive.
Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh have administered more than 10 million vaccine doses in the 18-45 years age group. Also, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Kerala, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Uttarakhand and West Bengal have vaccinated more than 1 million beneficiaries of the age group with the first dose.
Kerala has administered at least 25 million doses till now, said the state health minister Veena George. “Kerala has administered 25,520,478 doses. Of these, 18,682,463 were given the first dose and 6,838,015 were given the second dose.
