300,000 to receive vaccine jabs nationwide after launch by PM
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the rollout of India’s coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccination programme in India on January 16 with an address to the nation, the Union health ministry said on Thursday, in what will be the world’s biggest immunisation drive.
Around 300,000 health care workers will get vaccine shots at 2,934 sites across the country on the first day of the massive nationwide drive, news agency PTI quoting a senior official said. Each vaccination session will cater to a maximum of 100 beneficiaries.
PM Modi is likely to interact via video link with some healthcare workers from across the country who will be receiving the shots on the first day, PTI quoting unnamed officials said. He is also likely to launch the Co-WIN (Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network) App, a digital platform created for real-time monitoring of Covid-19 vaccine delivery and distribution, they said.
“The massive countrywide Covid-19 vaccination drive will be rolled out by Prime Minister from January 16. This would be the
world’s largest immunisation exercise,” the health ministry said in a statement.
A limited number of sites out of the 2,934 inoculation centres across the country have been shortlisted from where the beneficiaries can interact with the Prime Minister, and authorities in these centres have been asked to make provisions for IT infrastructure for providing a two-way interactive communication facility to enable it to link and interact with the national launch site through a video link, the officials quoted above said.
Officials at New Delhi’s AllIndia Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Safdarjung Hospitals, which are among the shortlisted facilities, said they are “ready for a two-way communication”.
The Prime Minister is also likely to interact with healthcare workers in Jhansi and Varanasi, according to UP health department officials.
According to the guidelines issued to the shortlisted vaccination centres nationwide, healthcare workers (those registered in Co-WIN to be vaccinated) on the launch shall include not only doctors, nurses but also nursing orderlies, safai karamcharis and ambulance drivers, and would be from a mixed age group.
The full initial procurement of 16.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines — Serum Institute of India’s Covishield, developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca Plc, and Bharat Biotech International’s Covaxin, which it has developed with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) —has been allocated to all states and Union territories in proportion to their healthcare workers database.
“This is the initial lot of supply of vaccine doses and would be continuously replenished in the weeks to come,” the ministry said.
India will treat Covishield and Covaxin “equally”, even though the latter’s drug’s efficacy has not been proven, and people will have no choice which one they get, Vinod K Paul, who heads the government panel on vaccine strategy, told news agency Reuters. “No vaccine is a backup to the other — both vaccines are equally important, both vaccines are hugely immunogenic,” he said. “They excite immunity against the virus.”