In a bid to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to maximum people across the state, Punjab Government on Saturday launched a 'mega vaccination drive' under which 5.5 lakh people were covered in a day.
Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that Punjab Government has for the first time received the quantity of 6,84,240 doses of Covieshield and 61,100 of Covaxin in one instalment on the late evening of July 1. After receiving the vaccines, the Punjab Government had made the road map of ‘mega vaccination drive’ to cover a minimum of 5 lakh people, in one day.
Sharing the district-wise data of vaccination, Sidhu said that Ludhiana led all districts by administering 82667 vaccination to people which is followed by Hoshiarpur 77930 and Jalandhar covered more than 62000 persons.
Pointing out the disparity while supplying the vaccines among states, the Health Minister said that Punjab has been receiving less supply of doses in comparison to the neighboring states like Haryana and Rajasthan where the vaccination drive is in full swing.Punjab was running short of vaccines for consecutively three days and due to disparity in supply, some of the Covid Vaccination Centres were remained closed.
The vaccination coverage of Punjab came down to just 16,000-17,000 from June 27 to July 2 and it swiftly moved up to 5 lakh after getting sufficient quantity of doses, he added.
Divulging about the supply of vaccines in the last week, the Health Minister said that Punjab Government received only 79,550 doses of Covishield on June 24, 79,540 doses on June 25 and 31,580 doses of Covaxin on June 29. The stock of Covishield remained almost nil from June 27 to July 1 which slowed down the vaccination drive. The number of COVID vaccination had decreased from 1,14,655 on June 22, to 17,704 on July 1 in the state.
Expressing concern over the third wave affecting lives of people, Sidhu said that Punjab Government has been preparing itself to cope up with any emergency, but less supply of vaccination from the Centre is hitting hard to the immunization drive.
Principal Secretary Health, Hussan Lal said that the spread of the Delta Plus virus is a matter of concern for Punjab Government as studies revealed that a person administered with the two doses of vaccine experiences fewer effects whereas a person with no immunization history tends to be affected badly.
Experts from the medical fraternity opine that the second dose of vaccine fortifies people from dangerous variants, considering the spread of Delta virus in Britain and European countries, it becomes important to bring people in the ambit of vaccination, he added.
He informed that two cases of Delta variant that surfaced in Patiala and Ludhiana district have properly recovered.
A total of 78,33, 665 doses of COVID vaccination have been administered in Punjab so far from which 66,60, 035 are covered with the first dose and 11,73,630 with the second dose, he added.