J&K likely to cross one crore Covid vaccine doses

Officials maintain that the pace of vaccination in J&K has picked up in the last two months with 99 lakh vaccines already administered in the UT.

Talking to Greater Kashmir, Director General Health, Family Welfare and  Immunization, Dr Saleem ur Rehman expressed satisfaction over the pace of vaccination and said that J&K was performing better than other states/UTs in administering vaccines to people above 18 years of age.

“J&K is among the top states/UTs in terms of vaccine coverage. Every day, on an average one lakh vaccines, are being administered in the UT. Around 20 lakh doses were administered in the month of August alone,” he said.

Dr Rehman said the average rate of J&K and particularly Srinagar was more than that of the national average.

“The national average of the second dose is only 21 per cent, while in Srinagar it is 26 per cent and in J&K it is 31 per cent,” he said.

He said around 98,000 doses were administered on Wednesday followed by 1.20 lakh doses on Thursday and 1.24 lakh doses on Friday.

“The number of doses administered on Saturday was around one lakh,” he said.

Notably, the J&K government is focussing on picking up the pace of vaccination in view of rising cases of Covid-19 in J&K, particularly in the Srinagar district.

“Srinagar is really doing well in administering vaccines. In the last ten days, around 15,000 people are being vaccinated per day in Srinagar district,” he said.