Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday said that the Centre was planning to widen the scope of the coronavirus vaccination drive by bringing more population groups under its ambit.

“A few days ago, the government announced that from April 1 all citizens aged 45 years and above will be eligible to get vaccinated,” Vardhan said, while speaking at an event, according to a health ministry release. “The government is already planning to widen the umbrella of Covid-19 vaccine beneficiaries soon to cover other sections of the population.”

Earlier this week, the Centre announced that all citizens above the age of 45, will be eligible for the jabs in the third phase of vaccination, starting from April 1. India had begun the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines on January 16, with a target of inoculating 30 crore people by July.

The health minister also indicated that more vaccines, apart from Covaxin and Covishield, were being developed and will be available by end of 2021.

“Just in January last year, research started with a previously unknown virus and we now have not just one, but several vaccines that will be administered to millions of people before the end of the year with several other types of Covid-19 vaccines also on the way,” Vardhan said, adding that he believed 2020 was “the year of science”.

The minister hailed the immunisation programme as a “jan bhagidari andolan [people’s participation movement]” as it involved several stakeholders. On the collaborative approach followed by India for planning and execution of the vaccination drive, Vardhan said that the exercise was an excellent example of how the federal system can work in synergy to maximise the reach of a programme.

Till Friday evening, more than 5.58 crore vaccine shots have been administered in India, while over 82 lakh people have received both doses, according to the official data.

India on Friday registered 59,118 new coronavirus cases, taking the country’s overall count to 1,18,46,652, data from the Union health ministry showed. This is the first time since October 17 that more than 59,000 new infections were recorded in a day. With 257 deaths, the toll rose to 1,60,949.