COVID-19 UPDATES AS ON 13.3.2021

 

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

India registers a new landmark in COVID19 Vaccination with Highest Single Day Vaccination of More than 20.53 lakh Doses

Total Vaccination Coverage nearing 3 Crore

Posted On: 13 MAR 2021 11:22AM by PIB Delhi

 

India recorded a significant milestone in its countrywide COVID19 vaccination drive which started on 16^th January, 2021.

More than 20 lakh (20,53,537) vaccine doses were given on Day-56 of the vaccination drive (12^th March, 2021) through 30,561 sessions. This is the highest single day vaccine administration so far.

16,39,663 beneficiaries were vaccinated for 1^st dose (HCWs and FLWs) and 4,13,874 HCWs and FLWs received the 2^nd dose of vaccine.

 

Date: 12th March, 2021
HCWs		FLWs		45 to < 60 years with Co-morbidities	Over 60 years	Total Achievement
1stDose	2ndDose	1stDose	2nd Dose	1stDose	1stDose	1stDose	2ndDose
70,504	1,37,745	1,14,621	2,76,129	2,23,856	12,30,682	16,39,663	4,13,874

 

Cumulative of more than 2.82 Cr (2,82,18,457) vaccine doses have been administered through 4,86,314 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am today.

These include 72,93,575 HCWs (1st dose), 41,94,030 HCWs (2nd dose), 72,35,745 FLWs (1st dose) and 9,48,923 FLWs (2nd Dose), 12,54,468 beneficiaries aged more than 45 years with specific co-morbidities (1st Dose) and 72,91,716 beneficiaries aged more than 60 years.

 

HCWs		FLWs		45 to <60 years with Co-morbidities	Over 60 years
1st Dose	2nd Dose	1st Dose	2nd Dose	1st Dose	1st Dose
72,93,575	41,94,030	72,35,745	9,48,923	12,54,468	72,91,716

 

8 States constituted 74% of 20,53,537 doses administered in last 24 hours.

Uttar Pradesh has topped the list with more than 3.3 lakh vaccine doses. 

Ten States account for 69% of the second dose vaccinations in India. Uttar Pradesh alone accounts for 9.71% (4,99,242) of the total second dose vaccinations in India. 

India’s total Active Caseload stands at 2.02 lakh (2,02,022) today. The present active caseload is 1.78% of the total Positive Cases. 24,882 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours.

Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh reported 87.72% of the new cases in last 24 hours. 

Maharashtra accounts for 63.57% of India’s total active cases.

Eight states are displaying an upward trajectory in daily new cases. 

On the other hand, 20 States/UTs have less than 1,000 Active Cases.

India’s cumulative recoveries stand at 1,09,73,260 today. The national Recovery Rate is 96.82%. The gap between total recovered cases and active cases is constantly rising and stands at 10,771,238 today.

 19,957 recoveries were registered in the last 24 hours. 86.43% of the new recovered cases are observed to be concentrated in 6 States.

Maharashtra has reported the maximum number of single day recoveries with 11,344 newly recovered cases. 

140 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

Five States account for 81.43% of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (56). Punjab follows with 34 daily deaths. Kerala has reported 14 deaths.

Eighteen States/UTs have not reported any COVID19 deaths in the last 24 hours.

These are Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Assam, Lakshadweep, Ladakh, D&D and D&N, Sikkim, Nagaland, Tripura, Manipur, Meghalaya, A&N Islands, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.

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MV/SJ
HFW/COVID States data/13^thMarch2021/1

 

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Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurates multiple facilities at AIIMS Bhopal

“Dream of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji being fulfilled with network of AIIMS across the country for superior healthcare for all Citizens”

“Government committed to expanding Institutes of Medical Excellence for High Quality Medical care for all”

Posted On: 13 MAR 2021 6:22PM by PIB Delhi

 

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare inaugurated multiple facilities at All IndiaInstitute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhopaltoday. He was joined by Shri Vishwas Sarang, Minister for Medical Education, Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation, Government of Madhya Pradesh. Shri Ramakant Bhargava, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), Shahganj also graced the occasion.

The Union Minister laid the Foundation Stone of Administrative Block and dedicated the Auditorium of AIIMS, Bhopalto the community. He also inaugurated the Mycology Advanced Resource Centre (MARC) established with collaboration of ICMR. The Skill Lab and the Cancer Treatment Centre (CTC) of the institute was dedicated to the country.

Recollecting the long-arduous journey in providing regionally balanced specialized medical care throughout the country, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, “Dream of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji being fulfilled with network of AIIMS across the country for superior healthcare for all citizens.  He envisioned to mitigate the regional imbalance in the healthcare management and teaching standards, after long realization that AIIMS, Delhiwas too much overburdened to cater to the entire nation. Therefore, in 2003 he announced PMSSY and under this scheme 6 regional AIIMS in various parts of the country. This was with great efforts of late Smt. Sushma Swaraj ji and justified demand of the region that this institute was established at Bhopal. It is geographically and strategically best location of such an Institute, which was formally announced on 16th July 2012 through an ordinance.”

He stated that Government of India under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is deeply committed to expanding Institutes of Medical Excellence for high quality medical care for all.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan expressed his unqualified elation at the multi-faceted achievements of the institute including areas of academics, patient care services, capacity building and research activities.  

Speaking of the recently inaugurated ICMR-MARC Centre, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, “I am also happy to know that Institute has got the New Generation Sequencing facility. This system will help faster sequencing of the pathogens including the SARS-CoV-2, other viruses, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. I am also incredibly happy to know that scientists and faculty of this Institute in collaboration with AIIMS, Delhiand other Institutes have developed several TB diagnostic tests, some of these are in advanced technology transfer stage. Other facilities like Animal imaging system, Flow cytometer with sorting, LCMS, Automated Nucleic Acid extraction system will pave way for research of international standards including the in-vivo drug targeting, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. I am pleased to know that out of the box thinking of the Director of AIIMS, Bhopal led to establish the Centre for Translational Medicine, the unique facility in any medical Institute of the country. This centre with all this state-of-the-art equipment can become a milestone in the integration of clinical and basic science. The Translation medicine has great future. This Centre at AIIMS, Bhopal is formed with the aim to accelerate the discovery of new diagnostic tools and treatments by using a multi-disciplinary, highly collaborative, "bench-to-bedside" approach. In this centre work will be done mainly on new diagnostic kit development, drug discovery, Whole genome sequencing, transcriptomics, artificial intelligence, and clinical trials.   We must learn how the innovations reach to the benefit of mankind and do not end at the publication of findings.”

He congratulated the institute in its endeavour of productive collaboration with other Institutes like the Research Institute of McGill University Health Center, Canada; CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR); National Institute of Health & Family Welfare (NIHFW); National Health Mission (NHM); AIIMS Rishikesh; Department of Public Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of MP.

The Health Minister also informed that AIIMS, Bhopalin its capacity as Mentor Institute for combating COVID-19 pandemic had supervised a total of 38 laboratories, institutes and medical colleges of Madhya Pradesh for COVID-19 RT-PCR testing after providing their microbiologists and lab technicians training at the Regional Virology Laboratory of AIIMS, Bhopal. The in-house laboratory has done more 1.96 lakhs COVID-19 tests till 12^th March.

“As a centre of Excellence for clinical management of COVID-19, Weekly webinars are being organized through COVID-19 related to pathophysiology, diagnostics, epidemiology, prophylactics, and therapeutics of COVID-19 among the medical and nursing fraternity of the region.”, he added. He also congratulated the institute for administering a total 6,433 doses of vaccines till date.

Dr. Balram Bhargava, Secretary (Health Research) and DG-ICMR, Prof. (Dr.) Sarman Singh, Director, AIIMS Bhopal and other senior officials of ICMR and AIIMS Bhopal were also present.

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Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

Dr Harsh Vardhan’s visit to Bhopal

Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurates New Green Campus of NIREH

“Suitable Intervention Strategies will enable the achievement of the sustainable development goals of UNDP”

“Exposure to Ambient Air Pollutants especially PM2.5 and NO2 contribute to the Spread and Virulence of SARS-CoV2 infection”

Posted On: 13 MAR 2021 5:32PM by PIB Delhi

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare inaugurated the New Green Campus of ICMR’s National Institute for Research in Environment Health (NIREH), at Bhopaltoday. He was joined by Dr. Prabhuram Chaudhary, Minister for Public Health, Government of Madhya Pradesh.

 Terming the event a historical moment for the country, Dr. Harsh Vardhan spoke on the timely importance of the work carried out at NIREH: “In the current times, massive urbanization and development have taken a toll on our environment. Many parameters of the environment such as air, water, soil, biodiversity, etc. have been adversely affected resulting in deterioration of global human health. Thus, looking into the health effects being caused by adverse environmental conditions is a need of the hour. It is fortunate that India is not a major contributor to environmental degradation, but at the same time, we are committed to conserve and preserve the environment. The Global Solar Alliance under the leadership of the honourable Prime Minister, Prime Minister Ujjwala Yojana to provide cleaner fuel and Swachcha Bharat Abhiyaan are evidence of our commitment.

The Union Minister informed that NIREH, Bhopal was set up in Bhopalon October 11, 2010 as the 31st permanent research centre of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), mandated to focus on the issues of environmental health research. It is poised to become a Centre of Excellence in capacity building for research and health interventions to meet challenges in environmental disasters in the country.

Laying out the challenges before NIREH, Dr. Harsh Vardhan explained, “The World Health Organization (WHO) reported in 2018 that over 91% of the global population resides in areas where ambient air pollution levels exceed the normal limits prescribed by the WHO resulting in around 4.2 million annual deaths. The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health further estimated that 1.8 million deaths worldwide are related to ‘water’ (mainly microbiological contamination) and 0.5 million deaths occur due to chemical pollution of water and soil by heavy metals and other man-made chemicals. Another major source of water pollution that is yet to be appropriately quantified is plastic debris. It has become an important environmental problem because of its ubiquitous prevalence, persistence, accumulation in aquatic food chains, and adverse effects on aquatic organisms and potentially to human health. The emission of huge quantities of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere, which is the main cause of climate change. Thus, research, especially targeted at estimating the burden of pollution/climate change and consequent health effects, is essential to design and implement suitable intervention strategies that will enable the achievement of the sustainable development goals of UNDP.

He also added that NIREH will play a great role in changing human behaviour through scientific communication aimed at educating and motivating the public to adopt pro-environmental behaviour.

Contextualising the current COVID-19 pandemic in the underexplored relationship between environment and health, Dr. Harsh Vardhan noted, “Emerging evidence suggests that exposure to ambient air pollutants especially PM2.5 and NO₂ contribute to the spread and virulence of SARS-CoV2 infection. Furthermore, ambient air pollution is a known risk factor for multiple adverse health outcomes including chronic cardio-respiratory morbidities and the presence of said morbidities renders the affected population more vulnerable to COVID-19. To worsen matters, closed indoor spaces provide ideal environments for viral transmission due to a lack of ventilation preventing the dilution of viral particles and the absence of ultraviolet rays which can potentially inactivate the virus.”

Dr. Harsh Vardhan ended his speech by pointing out that the concerns raised by him are only the tip of an iceberg and wished them the best in bringing to light facets of the complex relationship between environment and health.

Dr. Balram Bhargava, Secretary (Health Research) and DG-ICMR, Dr. RR Tiwari, Director, ICMR-NIREH and other senior officials of ICMR and ICMR-NIREH were also present.

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