Over 1 cr COVID vaccine doses administered in India: Govt

Over one crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the country till now with the highest single-day vaccinations of more than 6 lakh jabs given on Thursday, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday.

Of the 1,04,49,942 doses administered, Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry, Mandeep Bhandari, said 70,52,845 vaccine doses were administered to healthcare workers and 33,97,097 to frontline workers whose vaccination started on February 2.

Of the 70,52,845 vaccination doses, 62,95,903 healthcare workers were administered the first dose, while 7,56,942 healthcare workers were given the second dose.

"A total of 6,58,674 vaccinations were done on February 18, which is the highest single-day vaccinations during the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive," Bhandari said While till 6 pm on Friday, 2,61,935 vaccinations were carried out.

He said 41 hospitalisations have been reported till now out of which 25 have been discharged after treatment, while two are under treatment and 14 deaths have been reported.

He said hospitalisation percentage against vaccination was recorded at 0.0004 per cent and one case of hospitalisation have been reported in past 24 hours.

The joint secretary said a total of 34 deaths have been reported, which accounts for 0.0003 per cent of the vaccinations.

Fourteen deaths have been reported in hospital while 20 deaths have been reported outside hospitals.

He further said two new deaths post- vaccination have been reported. One is of a 52-year-old woman from Odisha, who died of septic shock. She died after 14 days of vaccination and a post-mortem was conducted.

While another death of a 55-year-old man was reported from Uttarakhand and a post-mortem report is awaited.

"No case of serious or severe adverse event following immunisation or death attributable to vaccination till date," he said.

Bhandari said 12 states and union territories, including Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura and Uttarakhand, have vaccination coverage of the first dose of healthcare workers at over 75 per cent while seven states and UTs, including Delhi and Punjab, have less than 50 per cent coverage of first dose among healthcare workers.

He said 15 states and UTs have recorded more than 40 per cent coverage of first dose among frontline workers. These states and UTs include Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana and Chhattisgarh.