India Reaches 4 Million COVID Vaccination Mark: Health Ministry

The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday said that India has become the fastest country in the world to reach the 4 million COVID-19 vaccination mark, achieving this feat in 18 days.

The ministry said that more than 41 beneficiaries have been administered shots under the countrywide exercise till morning.

"As on February, 1, India was among the top five countries in terms of number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to people. India continues to undertake its vaccination drive at a fast pace," the ministry highlighted.

 India"s fight against COVID-19 is bringing daily successes on other fronts as well, it said.

Fourteen states and UTs have not reported any deaths in a span of 24 hours including Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland, Lakshadweep, Ladakh (UT), Sikkim, Manipur, Puducherry, Goa, Odisha and Assam.

With a high number of COVID patients recovering every day and the sustained fall in the mortality rate, India's steady trend of registering dipping active cases continues, the ministry underlined.

The ministry also said that the country's active cases have declined further to 1,60,057 and dipped below 1.5 per cent of total infections. A total of 11,039 new confirmed cases were recorded in a span of 24 hours in the country, the lowest in seven months.

Also, 14,225 new recoveries were registered in the same period. It has led to a net decline of 3,296 cases from the total active caseload, the ministry underlined. The total recovered have surged to 1,04,62,631.

The National Recovery rate (97.08%) continues to be one of the highest globally, the ministry underscored.

"The gap between active cases and recovered cases is continuously increasing and stands at 1,03,02,574," the ministry said adding 31 states and UTs have less than 5,000 active cases.

Eight states and UTs have weekly positivity rate higher than the national average (1.91 per cent). Kerala has the highest weekly positivity rate of 12 per cent, followed by Chhattisgarh with 7 per cent, it said.

Till Wednesday, 41,38,918 beneficiaries have received the vaccination under the countrywide COVID19 vaccination exercise. In a span of 24 hours, 1,88,762 healthcare workers were vaccinated across 3,845 sessions.

A total of 76,576 sessions have been conducted so far.  

The number of beneficiaries being vaccinated every day has shown a progressive increase, the ministry stated.