Over 14 lakh beneficiaries inoculated across India

An employee in a protective gear works on an assembly line for manufacturing vials of Covishield, AstraZeneca-Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine at India’s Serum Institute in Pune. Pic/AFP

Nearly 14 lakh beneficiaries have been vaccinated for COVID-19 in the country, including 3,47,058 in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Saturday.

According to data released by the Ministry, the highest number of 1,84,699 vaccinations in the country has been reported from Karnataka, followed by Andhra Pradesh (1,33,298), Odisha (1,30,007) and Uttar Pradesh (1,23,761).

As many as 1,10,031 beneficiaries were inoculated in Telangana, 74,960 in Maharashtra, 63,620 in Bihar, 62,142 in Haryana, 47,293 in Kerala and 38,278 in Madhya Pradesh, according to the data. "As on January 23, 2021, till 8 am, 13,90,592 beneficiaries have received the vaccination under the countrywide COVID-19 vaccination exercise," it said.

Aurangabad sees rise in vax
At least 77.2 per cent health workers took the COVID-19 shots in Maharashtra's Aurangabad district on the fourth day of the vaccination drive, a considerable rise from the previous sessions, an official said on Saturday. As many as 772 health workers out of the day's target of 1,000 were administered the vaccine at 10 centres in the district on Friday, the official said.

While 64.7 per cent health workers were vaccinated on the first day of the drive on January 16, the numbers declined to 33.5 per cent on the second day, he said. Concerned about the drop in numbers, district collector Sunil Chavan held a meeting with personnel involved in the drive to probe reasons for the decline, the official said.

Brazil thanks India
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has thanked India for supplying COVID-19 vaccines to his country and shared on social media an illustration of Lord Hanuman bringing ‘Sanjivani booti' from India to Brazil.

Responding to Bolsonaro on Twitter on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "The honour is ours, President @jairbolsonaro to be a trusted partner of Brazil in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic together. We will continue to strengthen our cooperation on healthcare."

On Friday, India began commercial exports of COVID-19 vaccines and sent two million doses each to Brazil and Morocco. In a tweet on Friday, Brazilian President Bolsonaro said, "Namaskar, Prime Minister. Brazil feels honoured to have a great partner to overcome a global obstacle by joining efforts. Thank you for assisting us with the vaccine exports from India to Brazil. Dhanyavaad."

14K new COVID-19 cases
With 14,256 new Coronavirus infections reported in the last 24 hours, India on Saturday continued with its low streak of single-day cases, increasing the overall tally to 1,06,39,684. For the past 16 days, the country has been recording less than 20,000 daily new infections even as the toll remained below 300-mark for just short of a month.

1,06,39,684
Total number of cases in the country as of saturday

1,53,184
Total no. of deaths due to the virus in India

1,03,00,838
Patients recovered and discharged in india as of Saturday