Health Ministry briefs over progress made on vaccines, measures to control COVID in Delhi

While addressing a joint press conference on Tuesday, the Union Health Ministry and the NITI Aayog discussed the progress of India's COVID-19 vaccines, revealing that the vaccine of Serum Institute had completed its Phase-3 trial, while five other vaccines were under trial in the country. 

"Vaccine discussion has raised hopes in recent days. Our vaccine trials are going on with ICMR. Phase-3 of the Serum vaccine with ICMR is completed. Bharat biotech will start Phase-3 and Phase-2, vaccine results are expected anytime soon. Permission for Sputnik vaccine's Phase-3 trial has been received. Five vaccines are under trial and 2 out of 5 are under phase 3," said NITI Aayog's VK Paul. 

Urgent actions taken in Delhi: Health Ministry 

The Health Ministry also revealed that urgent decisions were being taken to bring the COVID-19 situation in Delhi under control. "Urgent actions are being taken by the Centre on COVID-19 situation in Delhi. There is an increase in overall beds including ICU beds, double testing to 1-1.2 lakh per day, enforce quarantine of contacts, enforce containment zone SOPs among others," said Health Ministry Secretary, Rajesh Bhushan. 

"Manpower will be increased to inspect nearly 4,000 containment areas in Delhi following the government-induced Standard Operating Procedures. 3500 ICU beds are available in Delhi now. It will be increased to 6000 ICU beds in the next few days. House to house survey will be done in containment zones in Delhi. This will also be done in other vulnerable zones. Total 7000-8000 teams will be put on this," added the officials. 

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Amit Shah holds COVID-19 review meeting 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday chaired a high-level meeting in Delhi which was attended by Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. During the meeting, Amit Shah said that the capacity of RT-PCR testing will be doubled. The authorities were also directed to increase the capacity of the hospital and various other medical infrastructures. Shah informed that more beds will be added to Chhatarpur's 10,000-bed COVID centre and DRDO's COVID hospital in Dhaula Kuan.

According to the data shared by MoHFW, Delhi recorded 3,797 new cases, 99 deaths, and 3,560 fresh recoveries in the past 24 hours. Delhi so far has recorded over 4,89,202 positive Coronavirus cases, out of which 4,41,361 have successfully recovered while 7,713 people have died. The total number of active COVID-19 cases in the city is 40,128. 

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(With Agency Inputs; ANI Image)