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India has now administered over 100 million precaution doses of Covid-19 vaccines, the Union health ministry said on Friday.
In a Tweet, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya informed and wrote, “This has been achieved by collective efforts. India has administered over 10 crore (100 million) precautionary doses. 10 crore people now have an extra layer of safety. Under PM Narendra Modi ji’s leadership, ‘Covid vaccination Amrit Mahotsav’ is going on in full swing to provide free precaution dose for all adults."
This comes after government started providing free precautionary for all adults in the age group of 18-75 years at government COVID vaccination centres as part of the Central government's 75-day booster drive.
However, on 26 July, as per the official data released had revealed that only 11% of the nearly 69 crore eligible beneficiaries has taken the precaution dose after the 75-day booster drive started.
The precaution dose coverage among the 64,89,99,721 eligible population was 8% till 14 July. India had on 10 April began administering precaution doses of Covid-19 vaccines to all aged above 18 years. Official sources further said 29% of the 10.43 crore eligible individuals aged 60 years and above have been administered precaution dose of Covid-19 vaccine till 25 July.
On July 6, the government had also reduced the gap between the second dose and booster dose from nine to six months.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar had informed that around four crore eligible beneficiaries had still not taken a single dose of covid-19 vaccine as on July 18 this year.
As per health experts, precaution dose of Covid-19 vaccine will be helpful to boost immunity and is important to protect family and society against the pandemic.
"Precaution dose will have a huge impact on COVID-19 surge. Precaution doses are available for free in government hospitals. A precautionary dose will be helpful to boost immunity," said news agency ANI had reported citing Dr Suresh Kumar, MD, LNJP hospital Delhi.
In recent days, India has been witnessing a surge in COVID cases. As of 5 August, it recorded 20,551 fresh Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, taking the country's active caseload to 1,35,364. The daily positivity rate stands at 5.14% while the weekly positivity rate stands at 4.64%.
Apart from this, the country has also administered a total of 205.59 crore vaccine jabs so far.
The country started administering the precaution dose of Covid vaccine to healthcare and frontline workers and comorbid people aged 60 and above from 10 January. The COVID precaution doses were available for free only for adults above 60 years of age. This was further expanded to cover all adults in April.
