COVID-19: On First Day of New Vaccine Regime, Over 88 Lakh Jabbed

PM Narendra Modi took to Twitter and called the numbers “gladdening”, congratulating those who got vaccinated.

(File Photo: Kuntal Chakrabarty/IANS)

Data from the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday, 22 June, showed that over 88 lakh vaccine doses were administered across the country on what was the first day of the revised guidelines for COVID-19 vaccination.

According to the health ministry, this is the highest number of vaccines administered in a single day across the world.

A total of around 88.09 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered on the first day of implementation of the Centre's 'Revised Guidelines for COVID Vaccination', the Co-WIN portal stated on Tuesday morning.

PM Narendra Modi also took to Twitter to laud the achievement, calling the numbers “gladdening” and congratulated those who got vaccinated.

The central government’s ‘Free Vaccination for All’ campaign in India started from 21 June.

According the new revised guidelines of COVID-19 vaccination, the vaccine is provided free of cost by the Union government and it will be allocated to states and Union territories based on the demand, disease burden, and progress of vaccination for all people above the age of 18 years.

The Centre will be procuring 75 percent of the vaccines that are being produced by the manufacturers. Earlier, the state and private hospitals were to procure 50 percent of the vaccine under ‘decentralisation’ of the process; however as the states requested the Union government of the shortage of vaccine, the new revision of vaccine guideline came into place on 8 June.

The revamped guidelines stated that, “In order to increase the production of vaccines, manufacturers are given the option to also provide vaccines directly to private hospitals which would be restricted to 25 percent of their monthly production.”

Though the cost of the vaccine doses in private hospitals will be fixed based on the manufacturing cost, the government has ordered that the private hospitals may charge up to a maximum of Rs 150 per dose as service charges.