India has become the fastest country to vaccinate 6 million beneficiaries against Covid-19 countrywide, said the Union Health Ministry as it termed it as a feat achieved in just 24 days. In contrast, it said that the USA took 26 days to reach this mark whereas the UK achieved this in 46 days. The nationwide Covid vaccination program was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 16 while vaccination of the frontline workers commenced from February 2.
At least 60,35,660 beneficiaries were vaccinated through 1,24,744 sessions, as per the provisional report till 6 pm on Monday.These include 54,12,270 HCWs and 6,23,390 FLWs. The Ministry said that 35 States/UTs conducted the Covid vaccinations on Monday with eleven States/UT vaccinating more than 65 per cent of the registered HCWs.
At least 11 States/UTs have reported less than 40% coverage of vaccinating HCWs. These are- Delhi, J&K, Ladakh, Punjab, D&NH, Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, and Puducherry while 10 States account for 75.12 per cent of the total beneficiaries vaccinated on Monday.
Total 29 persons have been hospitalized so far. This comprises 0.0005% of the total vaccinations.
“Of the 29 cases of hospitalization, 19 were discharged after treatment, while nine persons died. In the last 24 hours, one person who is suffering from B/L Facial Palsy has been hospitalized at Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences, Thiruvananathpuram, Kerala and is stable.
“Total 23 deaths have been recorded till date. These comprise 0.0004% of the total vaccinations. Of the 23, nine persons died in the hospital while 14 deaths are recorded outside the hospital”.