Vaccination of healthcare workers for COVID-19 will be carried out in Maharashtra four days a week so that health services at hospitals are not hampered due to their absence, an official said on Friday.
The inoculation drive is set to begin from Saturday with healthcare workers being the beneficiaries in the first phase.
"The vaccination drive will be carried out for four days a week (after the launch on Saturday)," said a senior health department official.
"Majority of the health staff in the state comprises of nurses and others having similar skill sets. Hence we need to manage their availability as well as their duty hours before sending them SMS for inoculation," he said.
All beneficiaries will be getting a text message before they are vaccinated.
Asked when the state is expected to receive a second lot of vaccine doses, he said the state government will inform the Centre about the number of health workers it needs to vaccinate but it is up to the Centre to sanction vaccine supply.
Maharashtra has received 9.83 lakh vaccine doses so far.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra's COVID-19 tally on Friday reached 19,84,768 as it recorded 3,145 fresh cases of infection, said a state health official.
The state also reported 45 deaths, taking the fatality count to 50,336, he said.
As many as 3,500 patients were discharged after treatment, pushing the tally of recovered people to 18,81,088.
With this the number of active patients settled at 52,152.
Mumbai city reported 575 positive cases during the day, which pushed its overall case count to 3,01,655, while its death toll rose to 11,229 of which eight were reported on Friday.
With 61,291 new tests, the number of tests conducted in the state has gone up to 1,36,84,589.
The Mumbai division, which consists of Mumbai city and satellite towns, reported 1,027 new cases, raising the tally to 6,80,604. A total of 19,328 people have died so far in the region, the official said.
Nashik division's cumulative case tally stood at 2,71,088 and death toll at 5,024.
The total number of cases in the Pune division stood at 4,91,644 and death toll at 11,439.
Kolhapur division has reported 1,17,053 cases and 3,997 deaths till now, while Aurangabad division's case tally stood at 73,866 and death count at 1,968.
Latur division has reported 80,494 cases until now and 2,440 fatalities.
Akola division has reported 68,194 cases while 1,546 people have succumbed to the disease until now.
Nagpur division has reported 2,01,675 infections and 4,521 fatalities so far, the official informed.
Maharashtra's COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases: 19,84,768, new cases: 3,145, death toll: 50,336, discharged: 18,81,088, active cases: 52,152, people tested so far: 1,36,84,589.
