NEW DELHI: Only one in every 1,400 COVID vaccine beneficiaries in India have reported any mild side-effects like pain or rash since the national inoculation drive began on January 16.
Out of 63,10,194 healthcare and frontline workers vaccinated so far, 4,303 have reported mild adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) which means only 1 in 1,400 vaccinated beneficiaries reported mild problems.
“Indian AEFI rate is only 0.07 per cent. This means Covishield and COVAXIN are superbly safe. The fact that over 6.3 million people have accepted the vaccines shows we have overcome the challenge of vaccine hesitancy,” Member Health, NITI Aayog, VK Paul said today noting that India was on course to cross one crore vaccinations in a couple of days.
The government has asked every state to schedule every healthcare worker and frontline worker once for vaccination before February 20 and March 1, respectively, and cover them through mop up rounds by February 24 and March 6 respectively. “Those who miss the mop up rounds would then only be covered later through age appropriate listing,” Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said.
Also, the National AEFI Committee met this week to discuss 8 AEFIs (two of them deaths and three hospitalisations). Those hospitalised were treated and sent home. Two deaths were found unrelated to the COVID jabs.
India has also emerged the fastest country to reach six million vaccinations in 24 days as against US which took 26 days and the UK which took 46.
While 12 states, including Himachal Pradesh (68.7 pc coverage), have covered over 65 pc healthcare and frontline beneficiaries, 11 states continue to lag at coverage rates below 40 pc coverage.
The laggards include Chandigarh 28.7 pc; Punjab 34.1 pc; JK 37.5 pc; Delhi 38.9 pc and Ladakh 35.8 pc.
Overall pandemic situation remains satisfactory with 15 states including Delhi reporting zero new deaths in 24 hours and seven states and UTs reporting nil deaths in the last three weeks.
India’s total COVID cases are 1.08 crore with only 1.32 pc of these (1.43 lakh) active cases. Total deaths are 1.55 lakh and are consistently declining.
“Trends of daily deaths under 100 are consistent for many days now,” said Paul with 96 average daily deaths last week and 5.35 pc cumulative positivity rate.
Kerala with 65, 670 active cases and Maharashtra with 35991 are contributing 71 pc of India’s active case load.
The good news is 33 states have less than 5,000 active cases and there has been 55 pc decline in average daily deaths in the last five weeks. New deaths per million in India in the last 7 days have been 0.5 as against UK’s 96. New cases per million in the last 7 days in India have been 58 as against US’ 2529.
Bhushan said 97.35 pc people vaccine beneficiaries reached for feedback said they were satisfied by overall vaccine experience.