India has overtaken the United States (US) in terms vaccinating more people with at least a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine, said the Centre on Friday.
"As per Our World in 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," said Dr. V.K. Paul, NITI Aayog Member (Health). In US, 16.9 people have received the at least a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine, he added.
The Union Health Ministry said the COVID-19 cases in the country are declining. "There has been a continuous decrease in districts reporting more than 100 average daily new cases; 257 districts reporting more than 100 daily cases," said Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry.
He said there has been a consistent increase in recovery rate and currently it is at 93.1%. 377 districts are reporting less than 5% case positivity currently, he added.
"If we analyse data in comparison to May 7 (highest reported peak), we are recording a 68% decline in daily cases. 66% of new cases are coming effectively from 5 states & rest are coming from 31 states/UTs which indicates that we are able to control the virus locally," Agarwal said.
Meanwhile, India reported 1,32,364 new coronavirus infections taking the country's total tally of COVID-19 cases to 2,85,74,350, while the recovery rate crossed 93 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.
The COVID-19 death toll climbed to 3,40,702 with 2,713 fresh deaths, while the active cases were recorded below 20 lakh for the fourth consecutive day, the data updated at 8 am showed.
A total of 20,75,428 tests were conducted on Thursday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 35,74,33,846. The daily positivity was recorded at 6.38 per cent. It has been less than 10 per cent for 11 consecutive days, the ministry said.
(With PTI inputs)
