Seven States, UTs Report Zero Covid-19 Deaths In Three Weeks: Health Ministry

 As many as seven states and Union territories have reported zero Covid-19 fatalities in the last three weeks, while 15 others have not registered any deaths due to the virus in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

The seven states and UTs are-- Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Mizoram, Nagaland and Lakshadweep.

The ministry further added that authorities have been successful in restricting the virus and reducing casualties.

While addressing a press briefing, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said India was the fastest country to vaccinate 6 million people within 24 days.

"There are 12 states and UTs that have vaccinated more than 65 per cent of the registered healthcare workers. These states are Bihar (78.1 per cent), Tripura (77.1 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (76 per cent), Uttarakhand (73.7 per cent), Odisha (72.4 per cent), Mizoram (69.9 per cent), Himachal Pradesh (68.7 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (68 per cent), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (67.9 per cent), Rajasthan (67.2 per cent), Kerala (66.9 per cent) and Lakshadweep (66.7 per cent)," he said.

Officials, however, noted that the last national sero-survey findings have shown that over 70 per cent of the population is still susceptible to the disease.

While some states have performed well, others need to improve their vaccination coverage, Bhushan said.

There are 11 states and UTs that have vaccinated less than 40 per cent of healthcare workers. These are Puducherry (15.4 per cent), Manipur (21.3 per cent), Nagaland (21.5 per cent), Meghalaya (24.3 per cent), Chandigarh (28.7 per cent), Punjab (34.1 per cent), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (34. 5 per cent), Ladakh (35.8 per cent), Jammu and Kashmir (37.5 per cent) and Delhi (38 per cent), Bhushan said.

"These are the states we are in touch with and we are telling them to increase their coverage," he added.

Bhushan further said the Centre has advised states and UTs that all frontline workers must be scheduled for vaccination at least once by March 1, 2021.

"We have further advised states and UTs that all frontline workers must be given opportunity of mop-up rounds by March 6, 2021. Those frontline workers who do not get vaccinated in scheduled vaccination rounds or in mop-up rounds will have to be relegated to the age-specific vaccination rounds," he said.

Bhushan also said a meeting of National AEFI Committee was held on February 5 where discussions were held on 8 adverse events following immunisation (AEFI) cases following Covid-19 vaccinations.

"Out of these 8 cases, causality assessment of 5 cases (2 deaths and 3 hospitalized) was conducted. Among hospitalised cases, all three were discharged. Two have been diagnosed as anaphylaxis; classified as vaccine-product related reaction (known and expected reactions following vaccinations) and one case diagnosed as syncope: classified as immunization triggered stress response (anxiety reaction)," he said. He further added that none of the fatalities were related to vaccination

Bhushan said histopathology and chemical analysis report in three death cases are awaited from the state government. "We are making a standard template through which we will put information in public domain," he said.

There is no evidence of presence of South Africa variant of SARs-CoV-2 in India so far, but we are keeping a watch, he said.

(With PTI inputs)