A total of 4,54,049 beneficiaries have so far been vaccinated against Covid-19 in the country which is more than double the number of coronavirus active cases, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

In a span of 24 hours, 2,23,669 people were vaccinated across 3,930 sessions taking the cumulative total of people vaccinated to 4,54,049 (across 7,860 sessions conducted so far) in the country, the ministry said. Of the total people vaccinated so far, the government on Tuesday said 0.18 per cent were adverse events following immunisation, while 0.002 per cent had to be hospitalised which is fairly low.

Addressing a press conference, NITI Aayog member (Health) V K Paul said concerns about adverse effects and serious problems post immunisation as of now seem to be unfounded, negligible, insignificant and stressed that both the vaccines are safe.

He also said that it was sad that “doctors, nurses and healthcare workers are refusing to get vaccinated” and requested the people to get the shots.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, “As per the data available so far, only 0.18 per cent is the Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) and 0.002 is the percentage of the people who were hospitalised following immunisation. These are fairly low, in fact lowest so far as we know in the world in the first three days.”

He said India recorded the highest number of first day vaccinations for Covid-19 immunisation.

Bhushan said in India 2,07,229 people were vaccinated on the first day, while in the US 79,458 people were vaccinated, in the UK 19,700 and 73 were vaccinated in France on the first day.

“The important point here is that if we look at the first week figures then the US conducted vaccinations of 5,56,208 people so that number will already cross by day 3. In the UK, in the first seven days 1,37,897 were vaccinated, 516 people were vaccinated in France in the first week and in Russia 52,000 people were vaccinated in the first week. So these are the comparative figures for you and we have just started so we will pick up speed,” he said.

Meanwhile, allaying fears and attempting to build confidence among people over vaccination, Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry said there has been “no case of serious or severe” adverse event following immunisation (AEFI) till date.

The comments from the Ministry came after media reports about two men ~ one from Uttar Pradesh and another from Karnataka ~ dying hours after they received the Covid-19 jabs.

Speaking to media, additional Secretary in the Health Ministry Manohar Agnani said the man from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh died due to cardiopulmonary disease.

The death “is not related to vaccination as per the postmortem report”, he said. The health worker who was vaccinated on January 16 died the next evening.

Agnani said that the man from Bellary in Karnataka died due to anterior wall infarction with cardiopulmonary failure.

The post-mortem report of the man, who was vaccinated on January 16 and died on Monday, is scheduled to be conducted at Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences in Bellary.

Cumulative total number of vaccinated healthcare workers across the country are more than 6.31 lakh so far.

~With inputs from PTI~