The nationwide vaccination drive entered its ninth day today (File)
Over 16 lakh healthcare workers have been vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus till now, the government said today in a statement.
Over 31,000 people were vaccinated in five states today till 7.30 pm, the centre said.
Karnataka has the highest number of vaccinations in the country so far with 1,91,443 beneficiaries followed by Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
The nationwide vaccination drive entered its ninth day today. Ten cases of side effects have been reported today after the vaccination drive.
After a sluggish start in the first week, India's vaccination numbers have gradually picked up.
The increase in numbers is also because of modifications made in the CoWin database to allow walk-in vaccinations, i.e those healthcare workers who are not slotted for a certain date can also come and get vaccinated.
On January 16, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India's massive Covid-19 vaccination drive with Covishield and Covaxin. While the former was developed by researchers at Oxford University in collaboration with pharma major AstraZeneca, it is being manufactured in India by Pune-based The Serum Institute of India.
Covaxin is being produced by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech which created the vaccine in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research.
In Phase 1 of the inoculation drive, set to be completed by July, one crore health workers followed by 2 crore frontline workers will get the vaccine. In the next one, besides those aged above 50, Prime Minister Modi and all Union and state ministers and lawmakers are likely to get jabbed.