India had rolled out the world's largest vaccination drive on January 16 this year

India has crossed 3.15 crore (31.5 million) cumulative COVID-19 vaccination doses, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said, referring to preliminary information received till Monday evening.

India had rolled out the world's largest vaccination drive on January 16, beginning with Healthcare Workers followed by Frontline workers.

The country launched the second phase of the vaccination drive on March 1 to cover those above 60 years of age and people above 46 years of age with specified comorbidities.

Earlier in the day, the ministry had said that 2,99,08,038 vaccine doses have been administered through 5,13,065 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am.

These include 73,55,755 HCWs (1st dose), 43,05,118 HCWs (2nd dose), 73,40,423 FLWs (1st dose) and 11,50,535 FLWs (2nd Dose), 14,64,014 beneficiaries aged more than 45 years with specific comorbidities (1st Dose) and 82,92,193 beneficiaries aged more than 60 years.

On Day-58 of the vaccination drive (Sunday, March 14), 1,40,880 vaccine doses were given.

Of the total, 1,20,885 beneficiaries were vaccinated across 2,211 sessions for 1st dose (HCWs and FLWs) and 19,995 HCWs and FLWs received 2nd dose of vaccine.

About the recoveries, the Health Ministry noted that India’s cumulative recoveries stand at 1,10,07,352. The national Recovery Rate is 96.68%.

In the last 24 hours, 17,455 recoveries were registered. 84.10% of the new recovered cases are observed to be concentrated in 6 States.

Maharashtra has reported the maximum number of single day recoveries with 8,861 newly recovered cases.

The Health Ministry noted five states of Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu continue to report a surge in the COVID daily new cases. They cumulatively account for 78.41% of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours.

In the last 24 hours, 26,291 new cases were registered.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 16,620 (accounting for 63.21% of the daily new cases) followed by Kerala with 1,792 while Punjab reported 1,492 new cases.

A rising trajectory of daily new cases is visible in eight states. These are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka and Haryana.

Kerala has a consistently declining trend over the last one month.

India’s total Active Caseload has reached 2,19,262, comprising 1.93% of the total Positive Cases.

Three states, Maharashtra, Kerala and Punjab, cumulatively account for 77% of India’s total active cases.

Maharashtra alone accounts for more than 58% of the total active cases in the country.

Meanwhile, 118 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

Six states account for 82.20% of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (50). Punjab follows with 20 daily deaths and Kerala reported 15 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Sixteen States/UTs have not reported any COVID19 deaths in the last 24 hours. These are Assam, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir (UT), Odisha, Jharkhand, Lakshadweep, Sikkim, Ladakh (UT), Manipur, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Arunachal Pradesh.