New Delhi, May 31 (IANS): The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday said that more than 23 crore vaccine doses have been provided to the States/UTs and approximately 1.75 crore doses are still available with them to be administered.

The Centre has so far provided, both through the free of cost category and through the direct state procurement category, more than 23 crore vaccine doses (23,11,68,480) to States/UTs.

Of this, the total consumption, including wastage is 21,22,38,652 doses (as per data available at 8 a.m. on Monday).

More than 1.75 crore COVID vaccine doses (1,75,48,648) are still available with the States/UTs to be administered.

Furthermore, more than 2.73 lakh (2,73,970) vaccine doses are in the pipeline and will be received by the States/UTs within the next 3 days.

As part of the nationwide vaccination drive, the Centre has been supporting the States and UTs by providing them COVID vaccines free of cost. In addition, it has also been facilitating direct procurement of vaccines by the States/UTs. Vaccination is an integral part of the government strategy for the containment of the pandemic, along with Test, Track, Treat and COVID appropriate behaviour.

The implementation of the Liberalized and Accelerated Phase-3 Strategy of Covid-19 vaccination started from May 1, 2021.

Under this strategy, every month 50% of the total Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) cleared vaccine doses of any manufacturer would be procured by the Centre. It would continue to make these doses available to the States free of cost as was being done earlier.