At a time when states are short of vaccines, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh managed to administer more shots than the doses they received from the Centre by May 4, 2021 and by May 7, West Bengal achieved this feat. These states did that by reducing wastage.

On May 4, 2021, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan tweeted, "Kerala has received 73,38,806 doses of vaccine from GoI. We've provided 74,26,164 doses, even making use of the extra dose available as a wastage factor in each vial…"

Of the 10 states that were shown by MoHFW's official Twitter page, as on May 3, 2021, only Kerala and Andhra Pradesh provided more doses than it received from the central government. By then, Andhra Pradesh had received 65,30,920 doses and had administered 67,60,531 jabs.

According to the data released by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on May 7, West Bengal had accomplished this. The state had administered 1,19,60,180 jabs from the 1,18,83,340 doses it had received.

But these are not the only states to report low wastage. Thirteen other states/UTs reported low wastage with Andaman and Nicobar Islands (-18.83%) reporting the lowest. It was followed by Mizoram (-7.90), Goa (-3.09), Himachal Pradesh (-2.95) and Odisha (-2.92%) among others.


On the other hand, Lakshadweep (21.93%) reported the highest vaccine wastage in the country, followed by Haryana (6.54%), Assam (6.04), Rajasthan (5.56%), Bihar (5.13%) among others.

India has administered more than 164 million vaccine doses as on May 7, 2021. More than 2.3 million doses or 23,70,298 were administered in the last 24 hours, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). India reported more than four lakh new cases and 3,915 deaths in the last 24 hours totalling to more than 36 lakh total active cases and 23,4083 cumulative deaths in the country.

As of May 7, 2021, the central government has provided 173.5 million or 17.35 crore vaccine doses to states/UT's free of cost, according to the Union Health Ministry. This means that of the 1.35 billion projected mid-year population as on October 1, 2020, 12.1% of the population has been vaccinated till date. Of this 4% of the vaccinated are above 60 years of age, 4.4% between 45-60 years, 0.8% between 30-45 and 0.3 between 18-30. (Note:18-44 years of age have received only the first dose).

More than 90 lakh doses are still available with states/UTs and more than 10 lakh will be provided in the next three days, the health ministry's data showed.

At 9,63,994, Uttar Pradesh has the maximum available doses in the country and 1,50,000 doses are in the pipeline. Maharashtra which is the worst-hit state with over six lakh active cases and 853 deaths has a balance of 4,84,287 vaccine doses and 1,50,000 doses are in the pipeline.