Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of the country, has become the first Indian state to administer 51 million doses so far. Of the total 51,302,185 doses, 43,247,485 first doses and 8,054,700 second doses have been administered across the state.
As part of the mega-vaccination campaign today on August 3, over 2,514,483 people in the state were inoculated. This is the highest so far. Last month on 6th July, 1,029,434 doses were administered on a single day in the state.
The highest doses today were administered in the state capital, Lucknow at 72,593. This was followed by Gautam Budh Nagar (43,006), Ghaziabad (77,785), Meerut (56,872), and Gorakhpur (56,340).
Yesterday on August 2, only 379,926 total doses were administered.
The Uttar Pradesh government had set the target of vaccinating 10 million people in one month in June and 30 million people in July. However, only 17.1 million people were vaccinated in July.
Total 12,347 sites are conducting vaccination across the state. Of these only 85 are private centres.
After Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra has administered the maximum doses at 45,241,935. Gujarat (34,427,571), Rajasthan (33,615,793), and Madhya Pradesh (33,168,948) are among other top performing states in the country.
Meanwhile, a recent Gaon Connection report showed villagers in Unnao and Barabanki districts of the state were travelling long distances to get inoculated. Despite making several trips, they were not receiving the vaccine.
After an awareness campaign launched during May-June to address vaccine hesitancy in the rural districts, people are now willing to get vaccinated but the sheer number of rural residents now coming to the centre has resulted in a major challenge for the administration to manage such numbers which exceed the capacity of these health centres.