BHUBANESWAR: More than one crore adults in Odisha are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the Health and Family Welfare department said on Monday. As per statistics available on CoWIN portal, over 3.43 crore vaccine doses have been administered in the State so far. As many as 1,00,39,438 people in the State have been administered two doses of vaccine while another 2,43,23,146 given at least one dose, the data suggested.
Odisha is ahead of states like Punjab, Telangana, Haryana and Jharkhand where the total number of doses administered so far is yet to cross the three crore mark. The State, however, lags far behind Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh where the total number of doses administered remains in the range of 4.74 crore to over 11.99 crore.
Director of Health Services Bijay Mohapatra said all eligible persons in the jurisdiction of Bhubaneswar and Berhampur Municipal Corporations have got at least one jab. Besides, 3, 540 villages including Riamal, Tikabali, Raikia, G Udaygiri and Bellaguntha have successfully vaccinated at least one dose to their eligible population.
Experts, however, emphasised the necessity for the State to ramp up its vaccination drive to cover all eligible persons with at least a single dose at the earliest. Odisha on Monday administered a little over 2.64 lakh doses of Covid vaccine compared to around 7 lakh doses in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and 10 lakh doses in West Bengal.
Mohapatra said the State government expects to vaccinate around 3.1 crore persons with a single dose by the end of this year. Meanwhile, the State logged 340 fresh cases of Covid-19 including 50 in 0-18 year age group in the last 24 hours. The test positivity rate during the period remained 0.59 per cent. Khurda reported the highest 149 confirmed infections followed by 43 in Cuttack and 15 in Kendrapara. The Health department also confirmed five deaths.