New Delhi, Dec 19 (IANS) Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday announced that India is at the cusp of authorizing the first set of Covid-19 vaccines and expressed the need for an expeditious vaccination drive to cover all the target populations estimated to be around 30 crore.
TYhe Minister made the announcement while chairing the 22nd meeting of the high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on Covid-19 through a video-conference here as India crossed the one crore infection mark.
He was virtually joined by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep S. Puri, Minister of State Health & Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai, Member (Health) NITI Aayog Vinod K. Paul, Advisers to the Prime Minister Amarjeet Sinha and Bhaskar Khulbe.
Reiterating his concern and appeal to diligently maintain a Covid appropriate behaviour, the Health Minister said the we should follow coronavirus guidelines even at a time “when the country is at the cusp of authorizing the first set of vaccines”.
He also expressed the need for an expeditious vaccination drive to cover all the target populations estimated to be around 30 crore.
Expressing deep gratitude to all Covid warriors, who have been steadfast in their duty without any fatigue throughout the pandemic which is in its 12th month, Vardhan informed his colleagues of the progress made by the country`s public health system against the pandemic and the encouraging results so far.
The Minister said that India`s Covid-19 pandemic growth has dropped to 2 per cent and the case fatality rate is amongst the lowest in the world at 1.45 per cent.
“India`s Recovery Rate has peaked to 95.46 per cent, while the strategy of testing 1 million samples has decreased the Cumulative Positivity Rate to 6.25 per cent,” he added. Observing the fact that despite festivals in October and November, Vardhan said no new surge of cases was observed in this period due to comprehensive testing, tracking and treatment policy implemented on the ground.
Sujeet K. Singh, Director (NCDC), presented a detailed report on how the data driven graded government policies have helped India achieve a significant control over the pandemic.
He showed figures related to the number of cases, deaths, growth rates and how they compared favourably to the rest of the world which is witnessing a meteoric rise in these parameters. www.msn.com
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