Twenty-two people have so far died after taking the Ciovid-19 vaccines in India, but the Government has claimed that they didn’t succumbe to any complication arising from vaccination. Making this claim, the Health Ministry on Saturday said so far over 56 lakh persons have been inoculated.
“There have been 22 deaths subsequently, but these are not linked to the vaccination,” the Health Ministry said.
The Government has also asked States and UTs to complete the first dose administration to all health-care workers by February 20 and mop-up rounds by February 25.
Of the 56,36,868 beneficiaries vaccinated, Additional Secretary in the Union Health Ministry Manohar Agnani said 52,66,175 are health-care workers and 3,70,693 are frontline workers.
He further said that 54.7 per cent of the healthcare workers registered on the Co-WIN app have been vaccinated.
“No new case of hospitalization or death reported in the past 24 hours,” he said.
He added that 13 States and UTs, including Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, have vaccination coverage of 60 per cent among health care workers while 12 States and UTs, including Delhi, Punjab and Assam, have less than 40 per cent vaccination coverage among health care workers.
He said Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Saturday reviewed the performance of vaccination drives with all States and UTs.
“He advised States/UTs to improve coverage, beneficiary turn out per session and minimize vaccine wastage,” Agnani said.
“The State health secretaries have been asked to analyze the daily variation in the number of average vaccinations and take necessary steps to increase them. States/UTs were advised to ensure 100 per cent saturation of people who have already been registered on CoWin digital platform.
“They were also asked to organise simultaneous vaccination sessions/day in the health facility wherever possible. Each State/UT was advised to devise a State specific strategy to achieve this target,” said the Ministry.
“Every State/UT must schedule all healthcare workers for vaccination at least once before February 20, 2021 and immediately thereafter organise mop-up rounds for them. Similarly, all frontline workers must be scheduled for vaccination at least once before March 6, 2021 and immediately thereafter organise mop-up rounds for them,” the Ministry said.