Member Health NITI Aayog Dr VK Paul on Friday said India has overtaken the United States in terms of the number of people who have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
"As per the data, the number of people who have received at least one dose of vaccine in India is 17.2 crore. We have overtaken the US in terms of the number of people in our country who have received the first dose of vaccine," Mr Paul said.
Asserting that country needs more time to achieve high coverage of vaccination, he said: "When the peak is declining and we suddenly get into same behaviour as a society like in January and February, it (the virus) will come back again in a certain way. We have to buy time to ensure that we achieve high coverage of our vaccination."
Meanwhile, Union Health Ministry's Joint secretary, Lav Agarwal commented about the drop in the number of active cases, and said, "There has been a continuous decrease in districts reporting more than 100 average daily new cases; 257 districts report more than 100 daily cases."
The Ministry also stated that 377 districts have been reporting less than 5 per cent case positivity currently.
India's daily new COVID-19 cases reported a decline on Friday as the country recorded 1,790 less cases as compared to Thursday. Down from yesterday's 1,34,154 cases, India today reported 1,32,364 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the country''s infection tally to 2,84,41,986, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday.
The country's active caseload further declined to 16,35,993 as active cases decreased by 77,420 in the last 24 hours. The active cases in the country have been less than 2 lakhs since eight successive days.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
WHO Approves Second Mpox Vaccine For Emergency Use Can Smoking And Air Pollution Influence The Risk Of Pneumonia? Israel Denies Carrying Out Strikes On Polio Vaccination Clinic In Gaza "Do You Sell Cars?": Elon Musk Roasts Jaguar's New Ad, Company Responds UP Dalit Woman's Body Found In Sack, Family Says Killed For Backing BJP Savage Attack On Andhra Pradesh College Student, Attackers Bit His Cheek 'If India Can Make Rocket Sensors, It Can Make Car Sensors Too': ISRO Chief Fact Check: No, Waqf Board Has Not Staked Claim To Mumbai's Siddhivinayak Temple High Court Orders CBI Probe Into Tamil Nadu Liquor Tragedy That Killed 68 Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.