Central govt claims 97% beneficiaries satisfied with vaccination process

Ninety-seven per cent of the people who gave their feedback after receiving COVID-19 vaccine dose are satisfied with the overall experience, the Union Health Ministry said today.

New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry on Tuesday said that 97 per cent of people have expressed satisfaction with the overall vaccination process, as a national level Adverse Event Following Immunisation (AEFI) committee has clarified that no death took place in India due to the Covid-19 vaccine.

The AEFI committee in its recent meeting discussed eight cases following Covid-19 vaccination. In two death cases, the committee found that the incident was not related to vaccination.

The committee found acute coronary event with ventricular fibrillation-coincidental and hypertensive emergency with intracranial bleed with chronic kidney disease-coincidental in both the cases.

Three hospitalised cases recovered completely and were discharged. The committee has asked for histopathology and chemical analysis report for three more death cases.

"The national-level AEFI committee has found no correlation between deaths of patients and vaccination," health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in New Delhi.

Referring to the vaccination process, Bhushan said that 97 per cent people were satisfied with the overall vaccination experience.

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"We have also asked all the states and union territories to enrol all health care workers and frontline workers in the Co-WIN app by February 20 so that by February 24 we can complete giving vaccination to all such people," said Bhushan.

The Ministry plans to cover all left out frontline workers by March 24 through mop-up rounds. The ministry also aims to complete giving vaccination to all health care workers by March 1.

It may be mentioned here that the government is contemplating to start vaccination to 27 crore prioritised people from March.

NITI Aayog member Dr VK Paul said that the government is all set to roll out vaccination process for the 27 crore more people in the priority group at the earliest.

"We are ready for the next stage of vaccination. We are in a position which is safe," said Paul, adding that "only one among 1400 people were getting fever, rashes following vaccination."

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Further, Paul said that 5-6 more Covid-19 vaccine candidates are currently in the pipeline.

He said that government is anticipating that Zydus Cadila's nasal vaccine, Novavax vaccine candidate, Sputnik V and a few more will come for use very soon.

Meanwhile, heath secretary Bhushan said that India at present has less than 1.50 lakh active cases and the cumulative positivity rate is 5.35 and declining further.

He said that Kerala (45.72 per cent) and Maharastra (25.06 per cent) account for 71 per cent of the total active cases in the country.

He further said that 11 States and UTs including Puducherry, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh, Punjab, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Delhi registered less than 40 per cent vaccination of health care workers.

"We have asked all the states and UTs to speed up the vaccination process. We are also continuously guiding Kerala and Maharastra to control the positive cases," said Bhushan.

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