7 states report rise in COVID cases, Centre says `this is a cause of concern`

There are still 62 districts in the country where over 100 cases are reported every day. These cases are found in a localised and limited set of areas of these districts, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry, said.

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday informed that 22 districts in 7 states were reporting an increasing trend in daily COVID-19 cases for last 4 weeks, which is said was a matter of concern.

“22 districts in 7 states reporting increasing trend in daily Covid cases for last 4 weeks; this is a cause of concern,’’ the government said.

"There are 22 districts- 7 from Kerala, 5 from Manipur, 3 in Meghalaya among others, where an increasing trend in cases has been reported, in the last 4 weeks. It is a cause of concern,'' Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry, said during a press briefing.

“There are 54 districts in 12 states, UTs which reported over 10 per cent COVID positivity rate for the week ending July 26,’’ the government added.

The Centre also refuted media reports claiming that India will miss the end-July target of administering 50 crore COVID vaccine doses as "ill-informed and misrepresenting" and asserted that over 51.60 crore vaccine doses will be supplied from January to July 31.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued a statement referring to recent media reports alleging that the country will miss the target of administering half-a-billion (50 crore) doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by July-end while pointing out that the government had stated in May that it would make 516 million (51.60 crore) vaccine shots available by the end of this month.

These reports are ill-informed and have clearly misrepresented the facts, it said. The ministry said that the figures of 516 million vaccine doses might have been picked up from various sources which informed about the likely availability of the vaccine doses from January 2021 to the end of July 2021 but the facts are that a total of more than 516 million vaccine doses will indeed be supplied from January 2021 to July 31, 2021.

It further said that the vaccine doses are supplied to the states and UTs as per advance allocation and information to them.

"Vaccines are supplied in various schedules throughout a month. Therefore, the availability of 516 million doses till the end of a particular month does not mean that every dose supplied till that month is going to be consumed or administered. There would be supplies in pipeline, which should be available for next few days till the next supplies of vaccine doses materialise in a particular State/District/Sub District to keep vaccination going on," it said.

As of date, a cumulative total of 457 million doses have been supplied to the states and UTs from January 2021 till date and an additional 60.3 million doses are expected to be supplied by July 31. This will amount to a total of 517 million doses supplied from January 2021 to July 31 2021.

"It should be appreciated that India has crossed the landmark of 440 million (44.19 crores) doses administered, which is the largest numbers achieved in the world and has been done at quite a brisk pace too. Out of these 9.60 crores are cases where both the doses have been administered," it added.

A total of 11.97 crore doses was administered in June 2021. Similarly, for the month of July 2021 (as of July 26), a total of 10.62 crore doses have already been administered.

It is the endeavour of the government to provide vaccination to eligible citizens in the shortest possible time as per the availability of the COVID vaccines, the ministry said.