Amid the spike in COVID-19, the Indian government on Tuesday said people at the age of 45 or above will be vaccinated from Apr 1. Information Minister Prakash Javadekar said there was sufficient availability of vaccine against COVID-19.

"This decision has been taken by the cabinet on the basis of the advice of the coronavirus Task Force and experts," said Javadekar.

At present, people aged 60 or above and those with comorbidities above 45 are eligible for the vaccine.

India has two COVID-19 vaccines in hand, Covishield and indigenous Covaxin.

After recording a sharp rise for the past few days, India registered a slight decline in the daily count of COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours.

In the past 24 hours, 40,715 new COVID-19 cases were recorded.

During the same period, 29,785 people have recovered from the disease.

In the same period, 199 people died due to the virus which is believed to have originated from China.

(IBNS)