Telangana Reaches 4-Crore Vaccination Milestone

Hyderabad: Telangana reached another milestone in its fight against Covid-19 as the state crossed four crore doses-mark on Thursday.

Health Minister Harish Rao Thanneeru expressed happiness over the state achieving the key milestone.

According to the health department officials, the latest set of one crore doses were administered in 48 days. The state had reached three crore-mark on October 23.

They said 94 per cent of the 2.77 crore population was administered the first dose while 50 per cent have received the second dose.

The number of eligible beneficiaries who received the first dose stood at 3,99,21,813 crore on Wednesday. By Thursday afternoon, the state crossed the four-crore mark.

As on Wednesday, 2,60,47,829 had received their first jab while 1,38,73,984 received their second.

The state had administered the first one crore doses within 165 days after the vaccination drive rolled out on January 16.

It took 79 days to administer the second set of one crore doses as the state saw an increase in vaccine stock availability and authorities also ramped up the efforts to administer doses.

The next one crore doses were administered in just 27 days. However, the pace of vaccination slowed down with the end of the second wave of the pandemic and the drop in the number of daily cases.

After the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in some countries and the rising global concern over a possible third wave, health authorities stepped up the vaccination efforts.

A cabinet sub-committee headed by the health minister was constituted to intensify the inoculation drive to achieve the goal of 100 per cent vaccination by the end of December. Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar also visited a few districts where vaccination coverage is low.

For the last few days, health workers have been going door to door to administer the doses. The department is specially focusing on those who have not taken the second dose despite completing the gap between the two doses.