DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand has achieved 34% of its vaccination target in June. However, it is facing a vaccine shortage now. On June 29, 74,852 were vaccinated. It dipped to 62,962 the next day. On Thursday, 44,959 were given the jab.
In Dehradun, only 7,964 were vaccinated on Thursday while 10,799 and 11,000 were vaccinated on June 30 and 29, respectively.
Meanwhile, the state received 60,000 doses of Covaxin while 2.40 lakh doses are expected to arrive on Friday.
Explaining the reason behind the shortfall, director of National Health Mission, Dr Saroj Naithani, said, “The idea is to do intensive vaccination. As soon as we are getting vaccines, our teams are conducting quick drives across the state. Hence, we are falling short. Uttarakhand is among top five states in terms of vaccination. The Centre has to provide vaccines to the other states as well. So, it might take a day or two to dispatch our order.”
One of the doctors at the health department said, “May be, it is due to the issue of storage. We have a polio drive also going on.”
In June, with 14,83,185 doses of a total 43,31,688, 34% of all doses had been administered.
Meanwhile, the state recorded 124 positive cases and one death on Thursday taking the tally of overall positive cases to 340379 and deaths to 7324, a death rate of 2.15% which is second highest in the country. Incidentally, the state’s 88% backlog deaths (218) which were reported on Wednesday were from hill districts. .
