The Centre on Monday promised to provide over 10 lakh vaccine doses for residents above the age of 45 years in Jharkhand in June, health officials said on Monday amid an ongoing shortage of doses meant for beneficiaries in the age bracket of 18 years to 44 years.
Jharkhand, officials said, was expecting around 5.8 lakh doses in June for beneficiaries in the age bracket of 18 years to 44 years. The vaccination rate for beneficiaries in this age group has been slow in the state with around 15,000 people getting the first jab daily on an average. In stock now is only 1.35 lakh doses for the 18+ category of beneficiaries.
“We have been assured supply of 3,33,770 doses of vaccine in the first fortnight of June and 6,77,510 more in the second fortnight. The vaccine doses will be provided in installments,” said Dr Siddharth Tripathi, the nodal officer of the health department’s IEC wing in Jharkhand.
Jharkhand continued to report more than twice as many Covid recoveries against fresh cases of infection on Monday, causing a drop in the growth rate of Covid-19, but over a dozen deaths kept the state's Covid mortality rate above the national average, data compiled by the National Health Mission (NHM) highlighted.
As per a bulletin released by NHM, as many as 831 people were found infected by the coronavirus in the state on Monday while 1,816 Covid patients recovered on Monday. The active caseload in the state dropped to 8,907, while 14 deaths took the Covid toll in Jharkhand to 4,991.
East Singhbhum reported 283 cases, the highest among all districts. However, at least 411 Covid patients recovered in the district on Monday, bringing the active caseload there down to 316. East Singhbhum also reported eight of the 14 deaths recorded on Monday, which took the toll there to 1,007, the NHM stated its bulletin.
Ranchi reported 61 cases against 276 recoveries and the active caseload here dropped to 2,463 by Monday evening. The district accounted for three Covid deaths on the day which took the toll here to 1,555, the highest in the state. The district also accounted for more than 30 per cent of the active caseload in Jharkhand.
Jharkhand on Monday tested swab samples of 50,338 residents and less than 2 per cent of them were found infected. So far, over 3.37 lakh people have been infected by the Coronavirus in Jharkhand and more than 95 per cent of them have recovered, while 1.47 per cent of them could not survive.
The state on Monday administered the first dose of the vaccine to 29,597 residents, while the second dose was administered to 5,313 beneficiaries.
