PM To Hold Review Meet This Week On Districts Having Low Vaccine Coverage

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have a virtual meeting with officials of districts where the COVID-19 vaccination coverage is low, his office said today. India administered its billionth Covid vaccine dose last week, a feat the Prime Minister hailed as a symbol of the country's ability and of "new India".

The meeting will include districts with less than 50 per cent coverage of the first dose and low coverage of the second dose of Covid vaccine, the notification said.

"Prime Minister will interact with District Magistrates of over 40 districts in Jharkhand, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, and other States with districts having low vaccination coverage. Chief Ministers of these States will also be present on the occasion," it said.

About three-quarters of adults in the country of 1.3 billion people have had one shot and 30 percent are fully vaccinated, according to government figures.

At the G20 summit session in Rome on Saturday, the Prime Minister underlined that India has administered one billion doses and is ready to produce over 5 billion Covid vaccine doses by the end of next year to help the world in the fight against the pandemic.

Neighboring China, the only nation to churn out more vaccine doses than India, has fully inoculated some 1.05 billion, or 75 per cent of its citizens, as of late September.

India administered its one billionth vaccine dose last week, months after cases and deaths peaked in the second surge of Covid that ambushed the country's health infrastructure.

India aims to fully vaccinate its adult population by year-end.