Jharkhand on Sunday vaccinated over 1.5 lakh residents for the second day in succession after a crisis of vaccines slowed down the pace of immunisation in the state for several days last week, data compiled by the health department highlighted.

As per provisional vaccination numbers released by the National Health Mission (NHM), the state on Sunday administered the first dose of vaccines to at least 1,18,004 residents, while the second jab was administered to as many as 34,018 beneficiaries.

Over 1 lakh beneficiaries who got jabbed were younger than 45 years. At least 94,250 residents in the age bracket of 18 years to 44 years got their first jab, while as many as 6,606 beneficiaries in the same age group got their second jab.

Data released by the health department on Sunday evening highlighted that the state has received 93,02,030 doses of Covishield and Covaxin doses from the Centre so far. The state has administered vaccines to 87,37,460 residents. Some of these beneficiaries also received the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, procured separately by private hospitals. The state had over 5.3 lakh vaccine doses in stock by Sunday evening.

The active caseload of Covid-19 dropped further to 254 in Jharkhand on Sunday as the state reported at least 50 Covid recoveries against 28 fresh cases of infection, an NHM bulletin stated. No fresh casualties were reported, and the Covid toll remained 5,124.

None of the 24 districts reported a double-digit-spike in Covid cases on Sunday with Koderma and Hazaribagh reporting the highest spike of four cases each. At least 10 recoveries against one fresh case of coronavirus infection brought the active caseload in Ranchi down to 52, while the active caseload in East Singhbhum dropped to 21 as the district reported five recoveries against one fresh case on the day.

As per NHM data, at least 11 districts – West Singhbhum, Saraikela, Palamu, Pakur, Lohardaga, Khunti, Godda, Giridih, Garhwa, Deoghar and Chatra – did not report fresh cases. Garhwa, which had zero Covid patients on Saturday, did not report fresh cases on Sunday.

The state on Sunday tested swab samples of 54,968 residents and 0.05 per cent of them were found infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. So far, over 3.46 lakh people have been infected by the deadly virus in Jharkhand and 98.44 per cent of them have recovered, while 1.47 per cent of patients have died.

The state did not report fresh cases of Covid-induced mucormycosis on Sunday. So far, at least 102 confirmed and 60 suspected cases of black fungus have surfaced in Jharkhand. At least 30 patients have died, while 101 have recovered from the fungal infection, as per data compiled by the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP).