<span style="color: #222222;">Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan today reviewed the status and progress of COVID vaccination with Health Secretaries and National Health Mission MDs of States and UTs through video conference. One of the largest such exercise globally, the countrywide COVID-19 vaccination programme was launched on 16th of January by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The Health Secretary appreciated the creditworthy performance of all States and UTs on COVID-19 vaccination. Elaborating on the global landmarks crossed by India, he underlined that India is the fastest country to reach the five million mark in COVID-19 vaccination in just 21 days. Several other countries which have had a head start, some as much as 60 days, have taken a longer time to reach this target. </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Mr Bhushan urged the States and UTs to exponentially increase the pace of vaccination. States and UTs were asked to improve the momentum and accelerate the coverage as the country moves forward with the COVID vaccination drive.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">It was pointed that there was a substantial scope for improvement in the number of average vaccinations per vaccination session. The State Health Secretaries were asked to analyze the daily variation in the number of average vaccinations and take necessary steps to increase them. States and UTs were advised to ensure 100 per cent saturation of people who have already been registered on CoWin digital platform. They were also asked to organize simultaneous vaccination sessions in the health facility wherever possible. Each State and UT was advised to devise a state specific strategy to achieve this target.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">While there are 12 States and UTs that have achieved 60 per cent or more vaccination coverage of health care workers, they were all advised to improve the percentage coverage of vaccinated beneficiaries as there are many States and UTs that need to improve their performance on this parameter. States and UTs were advised to ensure regular review meetings of the State, District and Block Task Force to assess the emerging challenges, understand the ground issues and promptly address them at the appropriate levels.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Every State and UT must schedule all health care workers for vaccination at least once before 20th of February and immediately thereafter organize mop-up rounds for them. All frontline workers must be scheduled for vaccination at least once before 6th of March up rounds for them. The failure of potential beneficiaries to get vaccinated in the mop-up round would automatically push them to age-appropriate vaccination category. The second dose of the vaccine is also scheduled to start from 13th of February for people who were vaccinated on 16th January. </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The Health Secretary reiterated need for adequate attention to issuance of provisional digital vaccination certificate after the first dose and final certificate after completing the second dose is required to be issued. He also stressed on importance of authentication of beneficiaries and timely data reconciliation on the CoWIN app. He stated that CoWIN 2.0 version will also be released soon.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The feedback from the States and UTs was analyzed and appropriate advice provided during the review meeting.</span><br />''  <br />