No case of South Africa variant of COVID-19 found in India so far: NITI Aayog

By Sahil Pandey
New Delhi [India], February 9 : No case of South African variant of COVID-19 virus has been found in the country so far, said NITI Aayog member (health) Dr VK Paul on Tuesday.
"South Africa variant of COVID19 is under the watch. It has come forward that this variant spreads faster. As of yesterday, this particular variant is not in the country," Dr Paul said while addressing a press conference.
The Union Health Ministry said that 15 States and union territories have not reported any death linked to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the last 24 hours.
NITI Aayog member lauded the improvement in the Covid-19 situation in national capital Delhi and said," It is remarkable that no death has been reported due to COVID-19 in Delhi, in the last 24 hours."
Dr Paul also shared his views on the progress of the COVID-19 vaccination program in the country and added," We can confidently say that the strategy to implement vaccination programme and the experience of vaccination is now consistently, very highly rated by people."
The health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that 97 per cent people are satisfied with the overall vaccination experience.
Bhushan said that so far 63,10,194 beneficiaries including healthcare and frontline workers have been vaccinated with the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as of now.
"Administration of the second dose of vaccine will begin on February 13. We cannot indefinitely keep on scheduling and rescheduling healthcare workers. States/UTs have been advised that all healthcare workers must be scheduled at least once for vaccination by Feb 20. Timelines are communicated to states," he added.
According to Union Health Ministry, there are 1,43,635 active COVID-19 cases, 10,54,8,521 discharged and 15,5,158 deaths due to the disease.