The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday said 188 districts in the country have not reported any new case of the coronavirus in the past one week. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, in a media briefing, also said that no deaths have occurred due to the vaccination.
“Not one death reported due to Covid-19 vaccination,” Vardhan said, according to ANI. “If there’s death after vaccination, it’s being investigated. Even routine side-effects have a negligible number. Relevant stakeholders working on post-Covid symptoms.”
Vardhan said the government will be able to vaccinate more people above 50 in March. Around 85% of the frontline workers have been vaccinated, the minister said. A total of 82,85,295 healthcare and other frontline workers have been vaccinated so far. Of these, 21,437 received their inoculation on Sunday.
“It is crucial that people continue to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour which I had called social vaccine, along with real vaccine,” the minister said.
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The Union health minister said at least 18 to 20 vaccines were in the pre-clinical and advanced stages, adding that he expected them to be prepared in next few months. India will be supplying vaccines to nearly 25 other countries, Vardhan added.
The health ministry said that out of the overall Covid-19 infections, three states – Kerala, Maharashtra, and Karnataka – contribute to 77% of the cases. Of these, Kerala and Maharashtra together account for 74.72% of the total active cases. Tripura, Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli currently have only two active cases each.
Maharashtra recorded 4,092 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, which took the state’s infection tally to 20,64,278. Meanwhile, Kerala on Sunday reached the grim milestone of 10 lakh cases after 4,611 new infections, took the state’s tally to 1,004,135. Kerala is the only state after Maharashtra to have recorded so many cases.
The ministry also said that 18 states and Union Territories had not reported any deaths in 24 hours, with no such reports from 10 states and UTs in the last one week.
“Covid strengthened country’s health potential,” Vardhan said. “We turned a crisis into opportunity. From one laboratory to 2,500 laboratories, we improved. Genome sequencing, which is being talked about now, has been in Indian labs since May-June last year.”
India on Monday recorded 11,649 new coronavirus cases, taking its tally to 1,09,16,589, the health ministry data showed. Deaths rose by 90 to 1,55,732. This is the ninth time in February that the country has recorded less than 100 daily fatalities.
As many as 1,06,21,220 people have recovered from the infection, pushing the recovery rate to 97.29%. The active caseload went up to 1,39,637, which is 1.28% of the total positive cases.
The country began administering the second dose of the vaccine on Saturday for the beneficiaries who recieved the first dose on January 16. However, only 23,628 healthcare workers were inoculated with the second dose on February 13. This is significantly lower than the 2,07,229 who got their first dose on January 16.
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