Bharat Beats India As Rural Areas Account For 64% Of 88 Lakh Doses Administered During Recent Mega Vaccination Drive

Rural areas accounted for 63.68 per cent of the total vaccinations done on Monday (21 June), the first day when the revised vaccination guidelines came into force.

Out of total vaccine doses administered on the day, 56.09 lakh doses were given from rural vaccination centres, while the urban areas recorded 31.9 lakh doses.

"The rural coverage is intense and in a good proportion. The vaccination numbers from Monday were almost in proportion to the rural-urban population division in the country. It proves that it is possible to take the vaccination drive to the rural and remote areas," said Dr VK Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog.

Dr Paul further informed that 71 per cent of the vaccination centres are in rural areas, and consistently, more than half of the total vaccinations carried out in the last few weeks were in the rural areas.

"92 per cent vaccine doses were administered from government centres on 21 June. This sets an example about the strength, resilience and reach of our public healthcare system. The experiences of implementing universal immunization programmes have been critical in the Covid-19 vaccination drive," he added.

In a record, India has vaccinated a whopping 88 lakh people against Covid-19 on a single day, thereby achieving its highest ever daily vaccination figure.

This high vaccination figure results from the new Centre-driven free vaccination policy that kicked off on Monday (21 June). India's earlier highest single day vaccination mark was 43 lakh which was achieved in early April.

So far, India has administered more than 29.68 crore vaccination doses and plans to vaccinate the entirety of the adult population by the end of this year.