No. of people vaccinated against Covid more than double of active cases: Govt

New Delhi: A total of 4,54,049 beneficiaries have so far been vaccinated against COVID-19 in the country which is more than double the number of Coronavirus active cases, the Union Health ministry said on Tuesday.

In a span of 24 hours, 2,23,669 people were vaccinated for COVID-19 across 3,930 sessions taking the cumulative total of people vaccinated to 4,54,049 (across 7,860 sessions conducted so far) in the country, the ministry said.

India's total COVID-19 active caseload has dropped to 2 lakh (2,00,528) as on date which consists of just 1.90 per cent of the total cases, while the daily new cases have touched a new low on Tuesday with 10,064 daily new infections being added to the national tally after seven months. The daily new cases were 10,956 on June 12, 2020, the ministry said.

"The fall in the number of daily new cases is accompanied by a fast-rising number of people getting vaccinated against COVID-19 across all states and UTs," it said.

"The total number of people vaccinated is more than double the number of active cases," the ministry highlighted.

The COVID-19 positivity rate has also seen a deep dip with the increase in the number of testing infrastructure.

Of the total people vaccinated against COVID-19 so far, the government on Tuesday said 0.18 per cent experienced adverse events following immunisation, while 0.002 per cent had to be hospitalised which is fairly low.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said: "As per the data available so far, only 0.18 per cent is the Adverse Event Following Immunisation (AEFI) and 0.002 is the percentage of the people who were hospitalised following immunisation. These are fairly low, in fact lowest so far as we know in the world in the first three days."

Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech has secured a fresh Letter of Comfort from the Centre for another 45 lakh doses of its COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin, sources said in Hyderabad on Tuesday.

Out of those 45 lakh doses, the city-based vaccine maker will be supplying over eight lakh doses of Covaxin to some of the friendly countries such as Mauritius, Philippines and Myanmar, free of cost as goodwill gesture. They also said the company will be dispatching 20 lakh doses of the earlier order in a couple of days, from Hyderabad.