With fresh supplies of vaccines coming in from the Centre, the vaccination campaign against Covid-19 regained momentum in Jharkhand on Saturday as the state administered the first dose of vaccine to over 1 lakh residents and the second to more than 30,000 beneficiaries on the day, figures compiled by the health department highlighted.

As per data released by the National Health Mission (NHM), the state on Saturday administered the first dose of vaccine to 1,09,459 beneficiaries, including 92,540 in the age bracket of 18 years to 45 years. At least 33,449 residents received their second jab on the day and most of them were above the age of 45 years.

Owing to an acute shortage of vaccines, Jharkhand had to cut down on vaccination in the past couple of days with several session sites remaining non-operational. On average, the state vaccinated less than 40,000 residents daily from Wednesday to Friday. Jharkhand received 6 lakh doses of vaccines from the Centre on Friday and distributed them to the 24 districts.

Meanwhile, the state continued to witness a drop in the active caseload of Covid-19 as recoveries outnumbered fresh cases on Saturday. At least 91 cases of Covid-19 surfaced in the state in the past 24 hours, while 116 Covid patients recovered during this period, bringing the active caseload down to 805. One Covid casualty, reported from East Singhbhum, took the toll in the state to 5,114 on the day.

The active caseload in Ranchi increased slightly as the district reported only five recoveries against 10 fresh cases of infection. As per NHM data, at least 232 Ranchi residents were battling the viral infection by the end of Saturday. Ranchi is also the only district in Jharkhand with a triple-digit active caseload.

At least six districts – Saraikela, Pakur, Hazaribag, Giridih, Dumka and Chatra – did not report fresh Covid cases on Saturday, while Ranchi reported the highest spike among the 24 districts, NHM stated in its daily Covid-19 bulletin.

The state on Saturday tested swab samples of 53,266 residents and around 0.17 per cent of them were found infected by Coronavirus. So far, more than 3.45 lakh people have been infected by the deadly virus in the state and 98.28 per cent of patients have recovered. About 1.47 per cent of patients could not survive.

The growth rate of Covid cases in Jharkhand dropped to 0.02 per cent against the national average of 0.11 per cent on the day, while the doubling rate in the state reached 3076.92 days against the national doubling rate of 660.05 days.