Govt to expand vaccination amid signs of second wave

Second phase of vaccinations to begin on March 1 for those over 60 and people above 45 with comorbidities

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Wednesday announced an expansion of its vaccination programme for those above 60 years of age and people over 45 years with comorbidities from March 1, even as it warned that breaches of coronavirus protocols could worsen an infection surge in many states.

Those who fall in above category will be able to get Covid-19 vaccine shots for free at government facilities and for a charge at many private hospitals, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said, adding that that the decision was taken during a meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the next phase of the vaccination drive.

“The second phase of the world’s largest vaccination drive will start from Monday in which anybody above 60 years, that may not be less than 100 million people in the country, and 45 years plus with co-morbidities will be given vaccines in 10,000 government medical facilities and also over 20,000 private hospitals,” Javadekar said. “Whoever goes to the government centre will be administered vaccine free of cost. The Indian government will pay for them. The government will purchase the necessary doses and will send them to all the states,” he said.

Those who want to get vaccination from private hospitals will have to pay, but the amount will be decided by the health ministry within the next threefour days as they are in discussions with manufacturers as well as hospitals, the minister said.

Javadekar said the world’s largest vaccination started on January 16 by inoculating health care workers and frontline staff, and 10,767,000 of them have been vaccinated and 1.4 million have also received a second dose. He asserted that the vaccination in India has been successful, “faultless with hardly any complaints”.

On whether people will have a choice on which vaccine — Covishield or Covaxin — they want to take, Javadekar said India is proud to have two vaccines which are both effective with proven efficacy. While Oxford-astrazeneca’s Covishield is being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, Covaxin is being produced by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.

Asked whether ministers and the Prime Minister, who would be in the category of those who can take the vaccination, will get inoculated, Javadekar said those who want to take the vaccination will take it at the place of their choosing from March 1.

Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was addressing the media along with Javadekar, said most of the Union ministers would want to pay to get themselves vaccinated. “In many places, prime ministers and ministers are getting it done, here we thought that first we will get our health sector fighters vaccinated,” Prasad