India second fastest in vaccination, crosses 10m
7 states account for 60.85% of second vaccine doses; nation records 13,193 new COVID-19 cases, while 97 more die in 24 hours, says health ministry
India has crossed a significant milestone in immunisation against COVID-19 with than 10 million people having been vaccinated, as of Friday, officials said.
“In the fight against the global pandemic, as on Feb.19, till 8am, the cumulative vaccine doses administered to healthcare and frontline workers against COVID-19 in the country have surpassed 1 crore,” the Health and Family Welfare Ministry said.
The country took 34 days to achieve the landmark feat of 1 crore vaccinations, which, the ministry claimed, is the second fastest in the world.
“A total of 1,01,88,007 vaccine doses have been administered through 2,11,462 sessions, as per the provisional report till 8am today.
These include 62,60,242 HCWS (1st dose), 6,10,899 HCWS ( 2nd dose) and 33,16,866 FLWS (1st dose),” it added.
The nationwide immunisation drive against COVID-19 was started on Jan.16 with two vaccines -- Covishield by the Serum institute of India and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech -- which were given emergency use authorisation by India’s drug regulator.
The drive started with vaccination planned for around 1 crore healthcare workers first followed by 2 crore frontline workers (FLWS) who registered as vaccine beneficiaries.
The 2nd dose of vaccination started on Feb.13 for those beneficiaries who have completed 28 days ater receipt of the 1st dose vaccination of the FLWS started on Feb.2.
“Till day 34 of the vaccination drive (Feb.18), total 6,58,674 vaccine doses were given. Of which, 4,16,942 beneficiaries were vaccinated across 10,812 sessions for 1st dose (HCWS and FLWS) and 2,41,732 HCWS received 2nd dose of vaccine,” the Health Ministry said.
It also said that eight states have accounted for 57.47 per cent of the total vaccinations.
Utar Pradesh tops the chart, with 10.5 per cent (10,70,895) of the vaccination alone.
Meanwhile, seven states account for 60.85 per cent of the second vaccine doses administered in India. Telangana leads all the states with a 12 per cent share of second doses (73,281 beneficiaries) administered in the country, it said.
Besides, 16 states/uts have not reported any Covid deaths in the last 24 hours. These are Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Puducherry, Chandigarh, Manipur, Mizoram,lakshadweep,sikkim,arunachalpradesh, Ladakh, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Daman and Diu, as per the information released by the Health Ministry.
Fiteen states/uts reported 1-5 deaths and 3 states/uts reported deaths between 6 to 10 deaths in the same duration.
A total of 13,193 new cases and 97 fatalities due to COVID-19 have been recorded in the country in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry had said on Friday morning.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Friday said that the COVID-19 pandemic is now setling down as an endemic, but people still need to remain vigilant.
“I feel now that ater all the three waves of the coronavirus which hit the city, the virus is dying eventually. Now it is no more a pandemic but an endemic. The infection will not be eradicated much like other diseases but the surge is on the wane. I hope we won’t see 8,600 cases in a day. I feel we are out of the danger zone but we still need to take proper precautions, masks and social distancing needs to be maintained,” he said.
The minister said the pandemic has affected many lives, however, Delhi successfully managed to sail through the tough times.
“Delhi government made calculated and wellthought-of moves, especially when it introduced the home isolation system which proved to be highly effective. At a time, when the focus was on ventilators, we were the first to take into consideration BIPAP and HFNC machines, and not stress on ventilators,” he said at an event organised at the Delhi Assembly to felicitate 76 frontline workers of Delhi government-run Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital.
Applauding the efforts of these frontline workers, the minister said that LNJP hospital has put up a brave fight against the virus and remains the only hospital that has treated over 11,000 patients of COVID-19.