New Delhi: Nearly 16 lakh (15,82,201) beneficiaries have received the COVID-19 vaccination so far, with 10 lakh taking vaccine shots in just six days, said the Health Ministry today.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Sunday said that the count is higher than that of countries like the US and the UK. While UK took 18 days, US had it in 10 days.
15.82 lakh people have been vaccinated in 27,920 sessions so far, of which 1.91 lakh people were vaccinated on Saturday (in 3,512 sessions) alone, according to the Health Ministry.
On January 16, India launched the vaccination drive, with frontline workers, including medical staff, to be inoculated in the first phase. The rollout came a few days after the country’s India’s drug regulator gave the emergency use nod to Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech, and Covishield, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
The government has said it will inoculate about one crore healthcare workers in the first phase. This will be followed by two crore “frontline workers”, including police, armed forces, municipal workers and revenue staff, getting the vaccine.
In the third phase, 27 crore people above 50 years of age and those with co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension and organ transplant will get the vaccine.
