Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday asked the states to focus on working towards achieving the nation's 100-crore Covid-19 vaccine doses goal. India has so far administered 94 crore vaccine doses.During a review meeting, the Minister exhorted each state to increase their target so that the administration of the last 6 crore doses for reaching the mark of 100 crore is achieved in the next few days.The Health Ministry also said that if festivals are not celebrated in accordance to Covid protocols in the country, it can derail the containment of Covid-19.Interacting with the Principal Secretaries and Mission Directors of National Health Mission of some of the states, Mandaviya reviewed the Covid vaccination progress there and advised for safe festivities in view of coming festivals. He said, "The two-pronged solution is to follow Covid protocols very strictly and speed up vaccination."He cited results of experiments that pegged the number of first dose recipients not developing severe Covid-19 to be 96 per cent and further pointed out that the number increases to nearly 98 per ent for people who have taken both doses of the vaccine.
Observing that more than 8 crore balance doses are available with the states, Mandaviya also enquired regarding the specific hurdles, if any, faced by the states in accelerating the pace of vaccination.The Health Ministry has issued the revised guidelines in view of coming festivals on September 21 which said no mass gatherings are allowed in areas identified as Containment Zones and in districts reporting more than 5 per cent case positivity.Gatherings with advance permissions and limited people as per local context to be allowed in districts with a positivity rate of 5 per cent & below. All states have to closely monitor the case trajectories across all districts daily to identify any early warning signals, as per the guidelines.Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan urged all the state health administrators to be strict with regard to observance of Covid Appropriate Behaviour during festivities to prevent the Covid-19 outbreak.The meeting with states also discussed prompt utilization of Emergency COVID Response Package (ECRP) II financial resources provided to them.The states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal participated in the meeting.