55 percent health care workers vaccinated with first dose of COVID vax: Government

A health worker receives COVID-19 vaccine at BR Ambedkar municipal general hospital. Pic/Satej Shinde

The Centre said on Saturday that around 55 per cent of health care workers have been vaccinated in the country so far whereas nearly 5 per cent of frontline workers have received the Covid vaccine till date.

"As per the figures drawn till 6 p.m. today, 56,36,868 health care and frontline workers have been vaccinated. In which, 3,70,693 beneficiaries were the frontline while the remaining 52,66,175 were the health care workers," the Union Health Ministry said.

"The figure of health care workers are 54.7 per cent of their total strength registered on CoWIN app while the share of the frontline workers inoculated till date stands at 4.5 per cent," it specified.

The inoculation exercise of health care workers started from January 16 whereas the frontline workers started receiving vaccine shots from February 2.

Meanwhile, the ministry also informed that 13 states have covered more than 60 per cent of their health care workers in the vaccination drive. These states include Bihar (76.6 per cent) Madhya Pradesh (76.1) Tripura (76), Uttarakhand (71.5), Mizoram (69.7), Uttar Pradesh (69), Kerala (68.1), Odisha (67.6), Rajasthan (67.3), Himachal Pradesh (66.8), Lakshadweep (64.5), Andaman & Nicobar Islands (62.9) and Chattisgarh (60.5 per cent).

However, it also added that 12 states fared poorly in terms of vaccinating their healthcare workers, including Delhi which has only covered 37.1 per cent of them. The least on the chart is Puducherry which has vaccinated only 13.1 per cent of its healthcare workers.

The ministry also informed that all states and Union territories have been directed to complete the administration of the first dose of vaccines to their health care workers by February 20 and conclude mop-up round by February 25. It also directed them to push the beneficiaries' count beyond the daily target of 100 per session.

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