Govt says, 146 districts in country reporting COVID positivity rate of over 15% is a major concern; Health Ministry assures, Centre and State govts working to mitigate COVID situation

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Apr 21, 2021
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8:03PM

Govt says, 146 districts in country reporting COVID positivity rate of over 15% is a major concern; Health Ministry assures, Centre and State govts working to mitigate COVID situation

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Union Health Ministry has said that presently there are 146 districts in the country where the COVID positivity rate is more than 15 per cent which is a cause of major concern and the government is focussing in these districts to control the situation.
 
Addressing the media in New Delhi, Union Health Secretary, Rajesh Bhushan said that the Centre and the States are making their best efforts to come out of the pandemic. He said, the death rate due to COVID-19 is declining and the case fatality currently stood at 1.17 per cent.
 
He said, there are five states where the active cases are more than one lakh. The States are Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Kerala. Mr Bhushan said that the Centre and these State governments are working together to strengthen the health facilities including beds, oxygen and medicines.
 
On availability of beds, Mr Bhushan informed that the total number of beds in the Central government Hospitals in Delhi has been increased to 2105 out of which 230 are ICU Beds. In the next two weeks 164 more oxygen beds and 122 ICU beds will be added. He said, Railways has also made 1200 beds available at Shakurbasti and Anand Vihar Stations through its coaches. He said, DRDO has also started its field hospital at Dhaula Kuan where 250 beds are already functional and 250 more will become operational from tomorrow.
 
On vaccination, the Health Secretary said, more than 13 crore doses have been administered in the country so far. He added that 87 per cent of all healthcare workers have received the first dose of vaccine and 80 per cent took the second dose.
 
On the issue of post vaccination breakthrough infection, ICMR DG, Dr Balram Bhargava said that 1.1 crore doses of COVAXIN  vaccine have been given out of which  over 93 lakh people received the first dose and breakthrough infection occurred in  4 thousand 208 persons which is only 0.04 per cent of the total.
 
He said, more than 17 lakh received the 2nd dose of vaccine out of which only 695 got infection after vaccination which is a very small number.
 
In the case of COVISHIELD vaccine, Dr Bhargava said that 11.6 crore doses were given out of which over 10 crore people received the first dose and nearly 17 thousand got infection which is only 0.02 per cent while the percentage is only 0.03 per cent in the case of the second dose.

NITI Aayog Member, Dr V K Paul informed that Biological E, an indigenous COVID-19 vaccine which is being developed with the help of Department of Biotechnology, has completed its first and second trials and third phase is being started. He added, this vaccine is expected to be available from August.

This is a very significant development and the manufacturer has a capacity of 7 crore vaccine doses per month.
 

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