Vaccine wastage must be brought down, says PM Narendra Modi during COVID-19 vaccination drive review meeting

Prime Minister Modi said that the coronavirus vaccine wastage numbers are still on the higher side in the country.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday (June 4, 2021) chaired a high-level meeting to review the progress of India's COVID-19 vaccination drive and directed officials to bring down vaccine wastage. 

The Prime Minister stated that the coronavirus vaccine wastage numbers are still on the higher side in the country and that steps need to be taken to bring them down.

As of Friday evening, India has administered over 22.75 crore vaccines including wastages.

During the meeting attended by several Union Ministers including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and Nirmala Sitharaman, officials briefed PM Modi about the current availability of vaccines and the roadmap for ramping it up. The PM was also apprised about the efforts undertaken to help various vaccine manufacturers ramp up the production of vaccines. 

They also told the Prime Minister of various measures being taken on the tech front to make the process of vaccination more people-friendly.

Officials informed PM Modi on advance visibility being provided to states on vaccine availability and said that states have been asked to pass on this information to the district level so that there is no inconvenience to people.

Meanwhile, India's active coronavirus caseload has further declined to 16,35,993 on Friday. The country saw over 1.32 lakh new infections between Thursday and Friday morning.

India's COVID-19 count now stands at 2,85,74,350, of which, 3,40,702 people have succumbed to the virus. On the other hand, India's national recovery rate has now increased to 93.08%.