COVID-19 vaccination for 45+ age group to remain closed in Pune today

The COVID vaccination for the age group of 45 years and above will remain closed in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad on Sunday, said district administration. No

The COVID vaccination for the age group of 45 years and above will remain closed in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad on Sunday, said district administration.

However, the vaccination for the age group of 18 to 44 years will continue at only selected vaccination centres with prior appointment/booking.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday sought the help of the Central government for better implementation of the vaccination drive for people in the age group 18 to 44 years.

In a letter to Prime Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister asked for a separate app developed by the states or a CoWin App for each state developed and assigned by the Union government to ensure better interface and experience for the citizens who are keen to take the vaccine shot.

"The vaccination drive in Maharashtra has been one of the fastest and most efficient in the country with every stock of vaccine that the Union government has kindly supplied to the state at various times in the past few months. Likewise, we plan to open up vaccination for age groups 18-44 via the states' procurement," said the Chief Minister.

Several states have reported a shortage of COVID vaccines.

Maharashtra reported 53,605 new COVID-19 cases and 864 deaths in the last 24 hours, said the state public health department on Saturday. With this, the case tally reached 50,53,336. As many as 82,266 patients recovered from the disease in the said period, taking the total number of recoveries in the state to 43,47,592. Meanwhile, the active number of COVID cases in Maharashtra stands at 6,28,213.

The new fatalities pushed the COVID death toll in Maharashtra to 75,277.

( With inputs from ANI )