Bengaluru,  Karnataka topped the Covid vaccination drive in the country by administering a whopping 26.92 lakh doses till 9 p.m. on Friday, K. Sudhakar, Minister for Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education stated.

The southern state was ahead of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh which achieved over 26.62 lakh doses and 24.86 lakh doses respectively, he said.

"I would like to thank all the health workers and other staff who have been involved in this historic vaccination drive," he added.

"It is a phenomenal effort by Karnataka to administer more doses today than Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which have several times more population," he said. "It is really apt that this effort coincides with the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has led the war on Covid from the front," he said.

Karnataka also crossed overall 5 crore Covid doses administered so far.

The top districts were the BBMP area (3.98 lakh doses), Belagavi (2.39 lakh doses), Dakshina Kannada (1.33 lakh doses), Ballari (1.33 lakh doses), Tumkuru (1.24 lakh doses) and Mandya (1.15 lakh doses). Bengaluru Urban, Shivamogga, Dharwad, Ramanagara, Hassana, Davanagere, Chikamagaluru and Haveri districts achieved more than 100% of the day's target.

With Friday's performance, total doses administered in the state in September have gone up to 87 lakhs. "We are very confident of crossing the target of 1.5 crore that we have set ourselves for September," said the minister.

The vaccination drive was conducted in over 12,000 Covid vaccination centres across the state. With this, Karnataka has administered a total of 5.12 crore doses till 9 p.m. on September 17.

"We are confident of vaccinating the entire adult population in the state by the end of November. India today administered a whopping 2.25 crore dose today till 9 pm. The total doses administered in India till September 17 has crossed 79 crores," he said.