Nearly 3 lakh people vaccinated on Day 12 of Covid-19 inoculation drive

The total number of health and frontline workers who have been administered a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) crossed 23 lakh on Wednesday evening, with as many as 2,99,299 of them vaccinated on the twelfth day of the drive, the Union ministry of health and family welfare said.

The health ministry said that 79% of those vaccinated through 5,308 sessions till 6pm Wednesday were from five states of Karnataka, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

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A total of 123 adverse events following immunization (AEFIs) were recorded on the twelfth day of the inoculation drive. In all, 16 people have been hospitalized so far, which is 0.0007% against vaccinations, and nine people have died after receiving the Covid-19 jab. However, none of these deaths has been causally linked with vaccination, the health ministry said.

India is conducting the world’s largest immunisation campaign with two shots—Serum Institute of India’s (SII’s) Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine Covishield and indigenously developed Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.

In the first phase of the drive, 30 million health and frontline workers are to be vaccinated while in the second stage those above 50 years of age, and those below 50 years of age with comorbidities or with a high risk of infection will be given the jab. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to take the shot in the second phase.

Meanwhile, daily recoveries from the viral infection have remained above the number of daily new cases for the past 20 days. Though the total number of Covid-19 cases in the country has reached 10,689,527, the active caseload at 176,498 is merely 1.65% of the total positive cases.

“These sustained encouraging results have been made possible with the Centre-led proactive and calibrated strategy of TEST TRACK TREAT TECHNOLOGY. Early identification through high and aggressive testing, prompt surveillance and tracking, supervised home isolation combined with high quality medical care through Standard of Care protocol issued by the Centre have aided the sustained high number of recoveries,” the health ministry said in a statement.

On Wednesday, Kerala reported the maximum number of single-day recoveries with 5,290 newly recovered cases while 2,106 people recovered in Maharashtra followed by 738 in Karnataka.