Jharkhand on Saturday vaccinated over 1.5 lakh residents against Covid-19, the highest in a day this month, after fresh supplies from the Centre allowed the state to intensify the immunisation campaign, figures released by the health department highlighted.

As per provisional data released by the National Health Mission (NHM), the state on Saturday administered the first dose of vaccine to at least 1,11,529 residents and the second dose to 40,398 beneficiaries. At least 91,000 residents below the age of 45 years received the first dose of vaccine against Covid-19 on the day, while 1,375 beneficiaries in this age bracket got their second jab.

At least 1,202 session sites were operational in the state on Saturday, as per the dashboard of the Co-Win portal. As many as 85 session sites, including 78 sites run by the government, were operational in Ranchi, while 87 session sites opened their doors in East Singhbhum. At least 78 session sites in Dhanbad inoculated residents on the day.

The immunisation campaign in the state lost momentum earlier this week due to shortage of vaccines and most of the government session sites remained non-operational. The state had around 7 lakh Covishield and 40,000 Covaxin doses in stock by the end of Saturday, health officials said.

While the vaccination campaign regained momentum on Saturday, the state also reported two Covid casualties after a gap of at least a week. The two deaths, one each in Bokaro and East Singhbhum, took the toll in the state to 5,124 and that in East Singhbhum to 1,041. At least 282 people have died of Covid-19 in Bokaro so far.

The active caseload of Covid-19 dropped further down to 276 in Jharkhand as the state reported 54 recoveries against 33 fresh cases of Coronavirus infection. As per NHM data, six recoveries against four cases brought the active caseload in Ranchi down to 61, while the number of active cases in East Singhbhum dropped to 26 as the district reported six recoveries against five fresh cases.

At least 11 districts – West Singhbhum, Saraikela, Palamau, Pakur, Koderma, Hazaribag, Gumla, Godda, Garhwa, Dumka, Deoghar and Chatra – did not report fresh Covid cases on the day. The active caseload in Garhwa reached zero on the day as the lone Covid patient in the district recovered from the infection.

The state on Saturday tested swab samples of 70,596 residents and 0.04 per cent of them were found infected by the deadly virus. So far over 3.46 lakh people have been infected by Coronavirus in the state and 98.44 per cent of them have recovered. However, 1.47 per cent of the patients could not survive.

The doubling rate of cases in Jharkhand rose to 7,099 days against the national average of 806 days, while the growth rate in the state remained 0.01 per cent against the national growth rate of 0.09 per cent, highlighted government data.