As States report short supplies of the Covid 19 vaccine, the Centre today denied any shortage and urged States to be better planned, and review the availability of vaccines at cold-chains and allocate as required to specific areas.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan told mediapersons that so far the Centre has provided 13,10,90,370 doses to the States and the total consumption, including wastage, stands at 11,43,69,677.

He added that 1,67,20,693 shots are available with the States and Union Territories and 2,01,22,960l doses would be available by this month-end.

In the last three days of Tika Utsav (April 11-14), one crore shots were administered.

The cumulative number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the country stood at 11,10,33,925 as at 8 pm on Tuesday.

Bhushan said Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Haryana and Kerala continued to report a consistent upsurge in Covid cases.

These States together with Gujarat and Rajasthan accounted for 80.80 per cent of the new cases.

Slight dip in cases

India reported 1,61,736 new cases on Tuesday, slightly lower than the record high number recorded the previous day.

India now has the second highest number of cases in the world, with the cumulative number at 1,36,89,453 of which 1,22,53,697 have recovered.

The death toll has increased to 1,71,058 with 879 fatalities reported in the last 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry website. The daily active cases stood at 12,64,698 on Tuesday.

Maharashtra continues to report the highest number of infections and on Tuesday it recorded 53,389 cases.

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