New Delhi, Feb 13: Beneficiaries of the nationwide COVID-19 immunisation drive began receiving second dose with over 7,000 healthcare workers getting the jab on Saturday, 28 days after their first shot on the inaugural day.
The Union Health Ministry said the cumulative number of healthcare and frontline workers vaccinated against coronavirus in the country surpassed 80 lakh on Saturday. It said 80,52,454 beneficiaries have been vaccinated through 1,69,215 sessions, according to the provisional report till Saturday 6 pm.
These include 59,35,275 healthcare workers and 21,17,179 frontline workers. “The second dose of COVID-19 vaccination started from today for those beneficiaries who have completed 28 days after receipt of the first dose. The approval provided by DCGI accords a window of four to six weeks for the second dose. As many as 7,668 healthcare workers received the second dose of vaccine today,” the ministry said.
On Saturday, 84,807 beneficiaries were inoculated till 6 pm, the 29th day of nationwide COVID-19 vaccination as per provisional data.
Thirty-four states and Union Territories conducted COVID-19 vaccinations on Saturday. Twelve states UTs have vaccinated more than 70 per cent of the registered heathcare workers. These are — Bihar, Lakshadweep, Tripura, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Sikkim. On the other hand, seven states and UTs have reported less than 40 per cent coverage of registered healthcare workers. These are Meghalaya, Punjab, Manipur, Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh, Nagaland and Puducherry. (PTI)
