Total Covid-19 jabs administered in India rises to 15.68 crores

India's Cumulative Vaccination Coverage has exceeded 15.68 Crore as Phase-3 of Nationwide Vaccination Drive commences and more than 86 thousand beneficiaries of age group 18-44 Vaccinated on Day 1 of Vaccination Drive Phase-3, the Centre said on Sunday.

According to an official release by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, The Liberalized and Accelerated Phase-3 Strategy of Covid-19 Vaccination has come into force from yesterday (1st May 2021). Registration for the newly eligible population groups had commenced on 28th April.

"The cumulative number of COVID19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 15.68 Cr today as the Phase-3 of the nationwide Vaccination Drive commenced yesterday," the ministry said in a statement.

Cumulatively, 15,68,16,031 vaccine doses have been administered through 22,93,911 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am today. These include 94,28,490 HCWs who have taken the 1st dose and 62,65,397 HCWs who have taken the 2nd dose, 1,27,57,529 FLWs (1stdose), 69,22,093 FLWs (2nddose), 86,023 beneficiaries under 18-45 age group (1st dose), 5,26,18,135 1st dose beneficiaries and 1,14,49,310 2nd dose beneficiaries more than 60 years old and 5,32,80,976 (1st dose) and 40,08,078 (2nd dose) beneficiaries aged 45 to 60 years.

It added: "86,023 beneficiaries of the age group 18-44 years received their first dose of COVID vaccine across 11 States."

These states are Chhattisgarh (987), Delhi (1,472), Gujarat (51,622), Jammu and Kashmir (201), Karnataka (649), Maharashtra (12,525), Odisha (97), Punjab (298), Rajasthan (1853), Tamil Nadu (527) and UP (15,792).

The Ministry said, "Over 29 crore tests have been conducted so far while the cumulative positivity rate has increased to 6.74 per cent."

The National Mortality Rate has been falling and currently stands at 1.10 per cent. 3,689 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. Ten States account for 76.01 per cent of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties - 802, followed by Delhi with 412 daily deaths, stated the health ministry.

( With inputs from ANI )