Centre prioritises vaccination for people above 45 yrs as 88% COVID deaths in this age group

The central government has prioritised vaccination for all people above 45 years as 88 percent of COVID-related deaths reported in India have been from the age group of 45 years and above.

The government expanded its vaccination drive to include everyone above 45 years from April 1, 2021. Prior to that, health workers, frontline workers and all people above 60 years and those above 45 years with co-morbidities were being vaccinated. 

However, given the current spike in coronavirus cases in the country, the government decided that it was paramount to vaccinate all those above 45 years  to prevent COVID-related deaths.

This was shared by NITI Aayog Member (Health) Dr. V.K. Paul, who said that people fulfill two responsibilities when they get vaccinated. First that they protect their own lives and second that they break the chain of transmission of the coronavirus infection.

The NITI Aayog member also asserted that India's vaccines are safe and effective. He added saying that all available data demonstrates that Indian vaccines are effective against both, UK and Brazilian variants of Coronavirus.

Over 7.3 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India

India has administered over 7 ,30, 54, 000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine so far, crossing a significant milestone. Over 30,93,000 vaccine doses were given to the beneficiaries in the last 24 hours, informed the  Union Health Ministry on April 3, 2021. 

The cumulative vaccination figure includes over 6 crore of first dose of the vaccine and around 1 crore of second dose. The country's  COVID-19 recovery rate has also reached 93.36 per cent  with the recovery of over 44000 people in the last 24 hours.

This comes as India reported 89,129 new COVID-19 cases and 714 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, which is the highest tally of new infections since September 2020. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country has now reached 1,23,92,260 and the death toll has gone up to 1,64,110.

Eight states show steep rise in COVID-19 cases

The Health Ministry informed that eight states including Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Chhattisgarh have shown a steep rise in the COVID daily new cases. 

Among these, Maharashtra has reported the highest number of new infections with 47,913 new cases, followed by Karnataka, which reported 4991 cases and  Chhattisgarh that reported 4,174 new cases.