Uttar Pradesh has crossed the milestone of administering 2 crore cumulative vaccine doses and also emerged as a leader by crossing the 30 lakh-mark in the 18-44 age category, the highest in the country.
Enthused by the response, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the state must intensify the vaccination drive to prevent a severe third wave and start targeting at least 10 lakh doses a day from July onwards. The target is to vaccinate at least 10 crore people in the next three months, he said.
“Till now, we have administered more than 2 crore (2,02,34,598) doses of vaccine. In view of the huge population of Uttar Pradesh, we have to speed up the vaccination drive. We must now work upon expanding the ‘Mission June’ target by three times in July,” Yogi said while addressing a high-level Covid review meeting on Sunday.
So far, around 1,66,27,059 people have received the first dose of vaccine while 36,27,433 have been fully vaccinated.
It is notable that so far, India has administered around 22.80 crore vaccine doses, of which UP accounts for around 8.9 per cent of the total doses. In the last 24 hours, around 3.88 lakh people were vaccinated in the state.
The CM said a district-wise strategy should be prepared to meet the target of 10 lakh vaccine doses a day in July.
“There is no shortage of vaccines. More vaccines will be available by the Central government soon,” he said.
Yogi also told the officials that to meet the July target, more than 100,000 healthcare professionals (as inoculators) would be required to vaccinate the entire adult population. “About one lakh additional vaccinators, including the nursing students, amongst others should be trained to meet the new target,” the CM said.
In a bid to encourage women to take the vaccine jabs, special pink booths will start operating in all the 75 districts from Monday. The UP government has directed the districts to initiate at least two women special booths each for focused immunity-booster drives.
Around 150 special pink booths in total are being set up in all the districts — one for the 18+ category and another for the 45+ women will be set up in each district. The government has issued instructions to set up these camps in District Women Hospitals or District Joint Hospitals. Depending upon the need, such camps will be set up in tehsils as well.