At least 40,000 doses of Covaxin were delivered to the Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi by an Indigo aircraft on Tuesday morning and subsequently sent to the National Health Mission (NHM) store at Namkum from where the 4000 vials were distributed among districts as per demand.

Jharkhand received over 2.57 lakh Covishield doses on Monday and the 40,000 Covaxin doses delivered on Tuesday take the total stock of vaccines in the state to over 4 lakh, enough to step up the immunisation drive for at least five to six days, health officials said.

Ranchi got the highest share of 3,400 Covaxin doses from Tuesday's fresh stocks, while 2,900 doses were sent to Dhanbad and 2,600 to East Singhbhum. Giridih received 2,700 doses, while 2,200 doses were sent to Palamau, data shared by the NHM highlighted. Pakur and Ramgarh got 1,100 doses each, while 1,000 doses were sent to each of Lohardaga, Latehar, Jamtara and Simdega districts.

“The vaccination campaign will regain momentum now as we have sufficient vaccines in stock to administer shots to over 75,000 beneficiaries every day for about a week,” said an official involved in Covid-19 vaccination drive, adding that the state will receive fresh supplies once the Centre finalises the schedule for the second half of July.

The immunisation campaign against Covid-19 hit a new low on Monday as the state managed to vaccinate only 14,000-odd residents owing to an acute shortage of vaccines. Even though Jharkhand received a supply of 2.57 lakh Covishield doses on Monday, the availability of vaccines in stock did not boost the vaccination drive as the vaccines arrived in the afternoon and were distributed among the districts till midnight, officials involved in vaccine logistics said.

Jharkhand has received close to 9 lakh Covishield doses and almost 1.5 lakh Covaxin doses from the Centre this month. The state administered vaccines to over 1 lakh beneficiaries daily from July 3 to July 7 after 6 lakh Covishield doses were supplied to Jharkhand on July 2. However, the vaccination drive could not regain the same momentum since July 7 due to vaccine crisis, officials said.

As per government data, Jharkhand has administered 76,75,389 doses of vaccines to eligible beneficiaries since the launch of the nationwide immunisation programme against Covid-19 on January 16. The state has so far received over 14 lakh Covaxin and more than 63 lakh Covishield doses in total. Besides, some Sputnik V doses were also administered at private hospitals.