COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker: 63.87 lakh doses administered in India on July 3

A person receives a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in New Delhi. (Representative image: Reuters)

More than 63.87 lakh vaccine doses were administered in India on July 3, the Union Health Ministry's latest provisional report suggested. With that, the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country crossed 35.12 crore.

On the 169th day of the vaccination drive on July 3, 42.08 lakh beneficiaries received their first shot and 21.78 lakh people were given their second dose.

The government has revised the gap between the two doses for the Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, to 12-16 weeks. However, the interval for the second dose of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin remains unchanged.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the nationwide vaccination drive on January 16, with healthcare workers at the frontline of India's COVID-19 battle getting their first jabs. The country began the second phase of the vaccination drive from March 1, in which, everyone above 60 years of age and those over 45 years with comorbidities could start getting the vaccine.

From April 1, vaccination was opened for everyone aged 45 and above with or without comorbidities.

India rolled out the third phase of its COVID-19 vaccination drive for those in the 18-44 age group on May 1.

The central government has 'liberalised' the vaccination drive to allow states, private hospitals, and industrial establishments to procure the doses directly from manufacturers. However, later it announced to provide free COVID-19 vaccines to everyone above the age of 18 years from June 21. The new COVID-19 vaccination policy is a significant shift from the government's 'liberalised and accelerated' policy, announced earlier.

Registration on CoWIN platform for the third phase began on April 28 and is mandatory for the 18-44 age group.

Here are key developments related to the COVID-19 vaccination process:

- More than seven lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses, highest in a single day so far, were administered in Maharashtra on July 3, a senior official said. "We surpassed our previous best performance... as of 7 pm we had administered 7,85,311 doses, the highest-ever figure for the state," said health secretary Pradeep Vyas.

- Bharat Biotech's Covaxin has demonstrated 77.8 percent effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 and 65.2 percent protection against the new Delta variant. The company said on the day that it concluded the final analysis of Covaxin efficacy from Phase3 trials. The efficacy analysis demonstrates Covaxin to be 93.4 percent effective against severe symptomatic COVID-19 cases while safety analysis shows adverse events reported were similar to placebo, with 12 percent of subjects experiencing commonly known side effects and less than 0.5 percent feeling serious adverse events.

- Breakthrough cases and COVID-19 recovered individuals with one or two doses of vaccine have relatively higher protection against Delta variant in comparison to those administered either one or two doses of Covishield, a study stated.

- Breakthrough cases and COVID-19 recovered individuals with one or two doses of vaccine have relatively higher protection against Delta variant in comparison to those administered either one or two doses of Covishield, a study stated. Prior vaccination results in less severe disease against subsequent infection provide evidence that both humoral and cellular immune response play an important role in protection, according to the study which is yet to be peer-reviewed and was posted on bioRxiv preprint server.

- The Kolkata police has sent samples of the fluids contained in the vials seized from the arrested fake IAS officer Debanjan Deb's Kasba office to the city-based National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) to identify them, a senior police officer said on the day.

- An ASHA worker, who had received both the doses of COVID-19 vaccine, succumbed to the infection in Odisha's Kendrapara district, an official said on the day. Saraswati Mallick, 35, an accredited social health activists (ASHA) worker of the Derabish community health centre, was admitted to a COVID hospital in Chhata last week.

Here's the vaccination count for some states:

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