India successfully rolled out the massive coronavirus vaccination drive in January, where vaccines are being administered to frontline health workers across the country. The country has witnessed the “speediest acceleration” of administration of Covid-19 vaccine doses, health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, highlighting that on March 15, India accounted for 36% of the 8.34 million shots given across the world

India administered the second-highest number of vaccine doses at around 3.3 crore in 60 days, as of March 15. The US leads with 10 crore doses though it started its vaccination programme around a month before India. The UK, the first to start Covid-19 vaccination inoculated only 2.6 crore doses in 98 days, Bhushan said.

India administered over 3.6 crore vaccine doses till 7pm on Wednesday. Of this, 1.5 crore health and frontline workers have received their first doses, whereas 1.2 crore doses have been given to those above 60 and 23.8 lakh to people aged between 45 and 60 years with co-morbidities. Apart from these, 63.9 lakh health and frontline workers have received their second doses.

Between March 1 to March 15, an average of 13.1 lakh doses was administered in the country per day. While Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat had the highest average ranging between 1.5 lakh and 1.2 lakh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were among the poor performers. 

India’s total Active Caseload has reached 2,52,364 today, comprising 2.20% of the total Positive Cases. A net incline of 17,958 cases recorded from the total active caseload in the last 24 hours.

Five States of Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu continue to report a surge in the COVID daily new cases and 79.54% of the new cases are from these five states. 35,871 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours. Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 16,620 (accounting for 63.21% of the daily new cases). It is followed by Kerala with 1,792 while Punjab reported 1,492 new cases. However, India’s cumulative recoveries stand at 1,10,63,025 today. The national Recovery Rate is 96.41%.  17,741 recoveries were registered in the last 24 hours.

172 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. Five States account for 84.88% of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (84). Punjab follows with 35 daily deaths and Kerala reported13 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Rajasthan, Assam, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Sikkim,Ladakh (UT), Manipur, D&N & D&N, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, A&N Islands and Arunachal Pradesh have not reported any COVID19 deaths in the last 24 hours.