Lucknow, May 23 (PTI) The vaccination of people in the 18-44 age group against COVID-19 will be expanded to all district headquarters in Uttar Pradesh from June 1, a state government spokesperson said on Sunday.

Currently, people in the 18-44 age group are being inoculated in only 23 of the state's 75 districts, he said.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed that vaccination of people in the 18-44 age group against COVID-19 should begin from June 1, the spokesperson said.

Inoculation of beneficiaries in this age group began on May 1 in Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Prayagraj, Meerut and Bareilly districts, he said.

On May 10, the vaccination drive was expanded to 17 district headquarters having municipal corporations and Gautam Buddh Nagar district. In the third phase, the number of districts was increased to 23, he added.

Till Saturday, over 1.62 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in Uttar Pradesh, according to officials.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)