New Delhi: The second dose of anti-coronavirus vaccine will be administered to those who took the first shot, mostly healthcare workers, from February 13, the Centre has said. Only the first dose has been given to healthcare workers so far since the drive has begun on January 16.

The government also said the country has made remarkable progress in terms of the number of people vaccinated with reaching the 5 million mark in COVID-19 vaccination in record 21 days, however, there is “substantial scope of improvement” in the number of average vaccinations per session.

“Twelve states and Union Territories have achieved 60 per cent or more vaccination coverage of healthcare workers, the government said. But all state were advised to improve the percentage coverage of vaccinated beneficiaries,” a statement from the Health Ministry read.

The government gave the states, UTs a deadline today.

“Every State/UT must schedule all healthcare workers for vaccination at least once before 20th Feb 2021 and immediately thereafter organize mop-up rounds for them. Similarly, all frontline workers must be scheduled for vaccination at least once before 6th March 2021 and immediately thereafter organize mop-up rounds for them,” the statement read.

The failure of potential beneficiaries to get vaccinated in the mop-up round would automatically push them to age-appropriate vaccination category, the government said.

At present, two vaccines — Covishield manufactured by Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin — have been approved by the Drugs regulator for restricted emergency use in India.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on January 30 had told states that there is a “huge scope for improvement in the number of average vaccinations per session” while asking them to ramp up the vaccination process after which several states, including Delhi, increased the number of vaccination sites.