Lucknow, Sep 30 (IANS): The 75-day 'Amrit Dose' campaign launched by the Uttar Pradesh health department on July 15 to administer a free precautionary booster dose of Covid-19 vaccine to 10 lakh people aged 18-59 years, has fallen short of the target by 50 per cent.

However, it still managed to improve the daily booster dose vaccination rate by 16 times.

According to health department data, about 5.1 lakh people were administered free precautionary or booster doses in 73 days of the campaign which will end on Friday.

District immunisation officer, Dr M K Singh said that since the current variant of the novel coronavirus is not causing serious illness and the transmission rate has also dropped to negligible levels, people have turned complacent and are not coming to vaccination centres to avail the facility.

The campaign to administer free precautionary doses to priority groups - healthcare providers, frontline workers and elderly -started in January.

The Central government allowed precautionary doses for all adults from April 10. However, those aged between 18-59 years had to pay for it.