Ahmedabad, May 23 (PTI) The Gujarat government has set a target to cover eight lakh people from the age band of 18 to 44 years during a week-long COVID-19 vaccination drive beginning Monday.

The drive aims to cover over one lakh people from this age group per day with the health department making special arrangements for its smooth and planned implementation across ten cities in the state, a government release said.

"This decision has been taken by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani so that more of the state's youth get vaccinated against coronavirus at the earliest," it said.

Around 30,000 people from the 18 to 44 age group are being administered COVID-19 vaccines daily across ten cities.

Gujarat has so far administered 1,53,83,860 doses of COVID-19 vaccines across different priority groups, with 39,08,225 beneficiaries getting their second dose as well.

A total of 28,85,271 first and second doses have been administered to healthcare and frontline workers while 1,18,14,746 dose are given to those above the age of 45 years in Gujarat so far. A total of 1,83,843 beneficiaries in the age group of 18 to 44 years have received the first dose of the vaccine so far including 39,336 on Sunday, the government said.

(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)