Anil Vij, Who Tested Positive For COVID-19, Discharged From Hospital

Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij was on Wednesday discharged from Gurgaon's Medanta Hospital where he had undergone treatment for COVID-19.

Mr Vij (67), a senior BJP leader, will now stay at his Ambala residence on oxygen support, he said in a tweet.

Over the past some days, Mr Vij had been showing steady improvement. He was admitted to Medanta hospital on December 15.

"With God's grace, day and night efforts of doctors and your prayers today, I have been shifted from the ICU to a room. Thanks to all," Mr Vij, who also holds the Health Department portfolio, said in another tweet a week ago.

Mr Vij, a BJP MLA from Ambala Cantt, had tested positive for COVID-19 on December 5. Initially, he was admitted to the Civil Hospital at Ambala and later shifted to the PGIMS, Rohtak, before being hospitalised at Medanta.

The firebrand BJP leader had offered to be the first volunteer in the phase three trials for Covaxin, an indigenous potential vaccine being developed by Bharat Biotech against COVID-19.

He was administered a dose on November 20 at the Civil Hospital in Ambala Cantonment.

Bharat Biotech had said that clinical trials of the vaccine are based on a two-dose schedule, given 28 days apart. The vaccine efficacy will be determined two weeks after the second dose, it said.

Covaxin has been designed to be protective two weeks after volunteers receive the second dose.

The Union health ministry had also stepped in to say that Covaxin is a two-dose anti-coronavirus vaccine and that Mr Vij was given only the first dose a fortnight before he tested positive.