The health ministry data showed that nearly a year after India began its vaccination drive, every 3 out of 4 eligible adults were fully vaccinated against the coronavirus and around 95% of the eligible adult population had received their first dose, and 75% have received both doses.

India had started vaccinating on January 17 last year, with healthcare workers, frontline workers, and the older population of the country on priority and later expanded to cover everyone including those aged 18 years and older. On January 3 this year, the vaccination drive for adolescents in the 15-18 age group started.

The Health Ministry said that while over 500 districts continued to report a case positivity rate of more than 5% due to the spread of the Omicron variant, the mass vaccination coverage had helped immensely to reduce the severity, hospitalisations and deaths. After WHO warned about the infectious Omicron variant, India for the first time administered over 3 crore second doses in the week ended November 19. The seven-day average for the next six weeks has been 3.47 crore doses.

Four large states reported more than 75% complete vaccination - Gujarat (96%), Madhya Pradesh (93%), Karnataka (91%), Rajasthan (77%), Telangana (97%), Haryana (83%), Kerala and Assam (78%), and Odisha (76%) have reported second-dose vaccination coverage above the national average, while Bihar and Andhra Pradesh (65% each), Uttar Pradesh (67%), Maharashtra (68%), and Tamil Nadu (69%), Nagaland (37%), Manipur (53%), Meghalaya (45%), and Arunachal Pradesh (69%)  have reported low second-dose coverage.

Reasons for the dip in the second dose might be that many states were now close to saturation first-dose coverage, and a majority of the population would be eligible for the second dose only months later, given the long interval between doses of Covishield.

Source: The Indian Express