21 days into Covid vaccination drive, India inoculates 5 million beneficiaries

As many as 50 lakh people have been vaccinated in the 21 days since inoculation drive began in India on 16 January, the union health ministry said on Friday.

"We completed 50 lakh (five million) vaccinations in 21 days. In the US. it took 24 days, 43 days in the UK and 45 days in Israel," said Manohar Agnani, the additional secretary of Union Health Ministry.

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A total of 52,90,474 healthcare workers have been vaccinated until 6 pm on 5 February in 1,04,781 sessions.

As many as 3,31,029 beneficiaries were vaccinated on Friday, according to the health ministry.

Agnani further said that no person was hospitalised after vaccination in the last 24 hours. "Total hospitalisation till date is 27, no hospitalisation in past 24 hours. Deaths so far are 22. New death in the past 24 hours is 1. A 77-year-old male, a resident of Agra. He was hospitalised seven days after vaccination with shock with preexisting diabetes," he said.

"None of these deaths have been linked with vaccination," added Agnani.

Meanwhile, the government has said that the second dose of the vaccine will be administered to healthcare workers from 13 February, highlighting that 45% of them have been inoculated so far.

Vaccinations of frontline workers started from 3 February while its third phase is likely to commence in March and will cover 27 crore people aged 50 years and above and those with co-morbidities.

"It is not possible to give an exact date, but we estimate that this process can start in the second, third or the fourth week of March," said Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

Two vaccines -- Covishield manufactured by Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin -- have been approved by the Drugs regulator for restricted emergency use in India.

Besides these, work is in progress on seven vaccines. Of the seven, three vaccines are in phase 3 clinical trial stage. Two vaccines are in phase 1 and 2 clinical trial stages and the remaining two are in advanced pre-clinical stage.