A health worker administers a dose of COVID-19 vaccine to a beneficiary in Bengaluru, June 22, 2021. Photo: PTI/Shailendra Bhojak
New Delhi: A decline in average daily vaccination for COVID-19 has been seen since June 21, when the new phase of universalisation of COVID-19 vaccination commenced, government data has shown.
According to data available on CoWIN platform, an average of 61.14 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered daily in the week from June 21-27 which dropped to 41.92 lakh doses daily in the subsequent week from June 28-July 4.
In the week from July 5 to July 11, the daily average vaccine doses number further dipped to 34.32 lakh doses.
Among states, however, a mixed trend has emerged with some states and UTs reporting a sinusoidal trend of vaccination while others a dip.
States such as Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh showed a decline in average daily vaccinations since the week of June 21-27 while a sinusoidal trend in administration of daily doses of COVID-19 was seen in states and UTs like Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Jammu and Kashmir, according to CoWIN data.
In the states of Assam and Tripura which recently reported a rise in fresh COVID-19 cases, a declining trend in administration of average daily vaccine doses can be seen.
Even then the daily average vaccination remained higher than the previous phase of COVID-19 vaccination.
In the week from June 14-20, just 33.97 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered daily on an average.
The cumulative vaccine doses administered so far has reached 37.73 crore under the nationwide vaccination drive.
According to a report in the Times of India, the slowdown in vaccination is primarily because of vaccine hesitancy issues and disruptions in Bharat Biotech’s Bengaluru plant which led to delay in supply of some batches of Covaxin.
Between June 25-30, the number of daily doses administered in rural areas were in the range of 9.9 lakh-40.4 lakh. However, it dropped to 8 lakh-38.1 lakh doses between July 1-9, the report said. In urban areas, the daily doses varied from 8.2 lakh-31.8 lakh doses during June 25-30, whereas during July 1-9, around 7.6 lakh -27.8 lakh doses were given, it added.
The health ministry on Monday said over 1.54 crore balance and unutilised COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with the states, UTs and private hospitals to be administered.
India on Monday reported 37,154 new COVID-19 cases which took its cumulative tally to 3,08,74,376, according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare’s bulletin at 8am. As many as 724 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, and 39,649 people recovered from the infection, it said.
(With inputs from PTI)