DW BUREAU / Chandigarh Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said on Tuesday that the state government has started a special vaccination drive to inoculate all pregnant women. Sidhu said the decision was taken based on the recommendations of expert committees and upon approval from the central government. Giving details of the drive initiated by the Punjab government, he said within the first few days of this drive, the health department has vaccinated 1,759 pregnant women. The Punjab government aims to cover all pregnant women in this drive as early as possible to mitigate the spread of Covid and to safeguard the life of mother and child, he said in a statement.The vaccination exercise against COVID-19 had begun from January 16 this year. However, pregnant women were made eligible to get a shot over a month ago. Talking about the Covid vaccination drive in the state, Sidhu said 106,81,257 eligible persons have been vaccinated, out of which 83,93,854 have received single dose and 22,87,403 have been fully vaccinated with two doses. He further stated that the state government endeavours to completely immunise all the residents of Punjab as soon as possible. Sidhu also said everyone needs to adhere to Covid-appropriate behaviour to avoid a possible third wave. Kerala reported more than half of the total COVID-19 cases recorded in the country in the past seven days, the central government said on Tuesday. At a joint press briefing on the pandemic, an official said that 37 districts across nine states, including Kerala (11 districts) and Tamil Nadu (seven districts), were showing rising trend in daily new COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks. As many as 44 districts across 11 states and union territories reported a weekly positivity rate of more than 10 per cent, the official said. Kerala reported 51.51 per cent of the total COVID-19 cases recorded in India in past seven days, he said. According to the central government, the reproduction number that denotes the spread of COVID-19 was more than 1 in five states -- Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The increasing trend of reproduction number in some states is cause of concern, although there is stabilisation in COVID-19 cases in the country, it said, adding there are significant reasons to enforce pandemic control measures. The government said Delta Plus variant of SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in 86 samples in India, including 34 in Maharashtra, as on August 9. India logged 28,204 new coronavirus infections, the lowest in 147 days, taking the total tally of cases to 3,19,98,158, while the active cases fell to 3,88,508, the lowest in 139 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday. The death toll has climbed to 4,28,682 with 373 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed. India on Tuesday recorded the lowest new daily Covid cases in the last 147 days. A total of 28,204 fresh cases were detected across the nation in the last 24 hrs. With 373 deaths reported in the same span of time, the death toll has climbed to 4,88,682, said the Covid bulletin released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. India has achieved the highest recovery rate ever, which currently stands at 97.45 per cent. Additionally, the active caseload has registered a substantial decline of 13,680 and currently stands at 3,88,508, which is the lowest in the last 139 days. The active caseloads constitute 1.21 per cent of total cases that is the lowest since March 2020. (editor@dailyworld.in)