A vaccine festival or ‘Tika Utsav’ is being conducted in the country from today to vaccinate the maximum number of eligible people against the coronavirus amid an anxious wave in cases. The mass vaccination programme will be conducted from April 11-14 and is being held following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to the chief ministers of all states and union territories during a meeting over the coronavirus situation.
“Can we celebrate Tika Utsav from April 11 to April 14? During this time, we should vaccinate as many eligible people as possible and target zero vaccine wastage,” PM Modi had said at the meeting.
Numerous states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have already started their efforts to double vaccinations and have urged people to get themselves vaccinated during the four-day programme.
In Uttar Pradesh, the ‘Tika Utsav’ will start with 6,000 vaccination centres in the state. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath along with the Governor will take part in the Webinars on vaccination on all the days of the drive.
Bihar is likely to vaccinate four lakh people, during ‘Tika Utsav’, in the words of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Mr Kumar has also urged the people to come forward for vaccination to restrain the corona pandemic.
Mr Kumar’s counterpart in Karnataka, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa called vaccine the “biggest weapon” in the battle against coronavirus as he asked eligible people in the southern state to get vaccinated.
The initiative is taking place amid states like Punjab, Rajasthan and Maharashtra informing about fast-depleting coronavirus vaccine stocks.
While Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said his state had only five days of vaccines left, his counterpart from Rajasthan, Ashok Gehlot, has informed that vaccine stocks in the state will run out in 48 hours or less if the centre does not send the doses immediately.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has also signalled the vaccine shortage issue, saying the national capital had between seven and 10 days of stock left.
At the beginning of this week, Jharkhand Health Minister Banna Gupta told news agency ANI there were only two days of supply left in his state, with around 10 lakh doses urgently needed.
Over 10 crore people have been given COVID-19 vaccine doses in the country since the mass vaccination initiative began earlier this year, making India the fastest nation to reach the milestone.
While India took just 85 days to reach the 100 million dose mark, the US took 89 days and China took 102 days to do the same, the Union Health Ministry said.
India has been observing an unusual surge of coronavirus cases since the start of the year. On Saturday, the country added 1,45,384 fresh coronavirus cases, the highest single-day surge so far, as the country’s tally climbed to 1,32,05,0926.
Eight states — Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala — account for 60.62 per cent of the total doses given so far in the country, according to the ministry.
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