Union Health Ministry has reduced gap for COVID-19 precaution doses from existing 9 months to 6 months for those above 18 years.
Meanwhile, India reported 16,159 new COVID cases in the last 24 hours, 3,073 more than yesterday, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Wednesday.
The country had recorded 13,086 fresh infections on Tuesday.
With this, the number of active cases in the country rose to 1,15,212.
The daily case positivity rate went up from 2.90 per cent yesterday to 3.56 per cent today while the weekly positivity rate stands at 3.84 per cent.
As per the Health Ministry, 15,394 COVID patients recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries since the onset of the pandemic in the country to 4,29,07,327. The rate of recovery currently is 98.53 per cent.
28 patients succumbed to the virus during this period. The death toll in the country has gone up to 5,25,270.
As many as 4,54,465 COVID tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. The total number of tests conducted so far has increased to 86.49 crores.
Under the nationwide vaccination drive, 9,95,810 COVID vaccines were administered in the last 24 hours. The cumulative vaccine doses jabbed till date are 1,98,20,86,763.
In the new phase of the universalization of the COVID vaccination drive, the Union Government will procure and supply (free of cost) 75 per cent of the vaccines being produced by the vaccine manufacturers in the country to States and UTs
