Less than 10,000 Jharkhand residents were administered the first jab of the Covishield vaccine in the state on Thursday despite Centre's nudge at the slow pace of vaccination at hospitals in the tribal state and direction to the authorities to intensify the campaign. The state achieved only 6 per cent of its target for vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers on the day, revealed data compiled by the National Health Mission (NHM).

As many as 9896 Jharkhand residents, including 5996 senior citizens and 2251 middle-agers with comorbid conditions, were administered the first dose of the vaccine, an NHM report stated. The state managed to administer the first dose of the vaccine to only 1649 of the over 27,000 registered healthcare and frontline workers on the day.

Over 2000 residents were administered the first dose of the vaccine in Bokaro, while more than 1600 Ranchi residents got the first jab of the vaccine on Thursday. Bokaro also administered the vaccine jab to 1350 senior citizens – the highest among the 24 districts in Jharkhand.

The state also performed poorly in administering the second dose of the vaccine to the beneficiaries. On Thursday, only 6443 healthcare and frontline workers, around 12 per cent of the registered 55,173 beneficiaries, were administered the second dose of the vaccine in the state.

Jharkhand has so far achieved 83 per cent of its target for the first dose of vaccination and 70 per cent of its target for the second dose. As per government data, as many as 4,01,639 Jharkhand residents have been administered the first dose of the vaccine so far, and at least 1,13,001 of them have also received the second dose.

As many as 48,617 Ranchi residents have received the first dose of the vaccine so far, while over 29,835 East Singhbhum residents have got the first jab, reveals data compiled by the NHM. At least 29,461 Bokaro residents have got the first jab, 29,402 Dhanbad residents have been inoculated.

Meanwhile, Covid recoveries outnumbered fresh cases of infection on Thursday, bringing the count of active cases down to 511, a separate bulletin released by the NHM stated. However, the number of active cases rose slightly in Ranchi on the day as it reported 25 cases against 22 recoveries.

As many as 31 people were found infected by the Covid-19 virus in Jharkhand on the day, while 40 Covid patients recovered. The state on Thursday tested swab samples of more than 11,000 people and less than 0.5 per cent of them were found infected.

As per government data, over 1.20 lakh people have been infected by the mysterious virus in Jharkhand so far and more than 98 per cent of them have recovered. The growth rate of Covid infection in the state was 0.03 per cent against the national average of 0.13 per cent.