India seeks up to 500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses by July
Minister says that Centre is working on plans to procure 400-500m doses of virus vaccine, which will be administered to up to 250m people by July 2021; COVID-19 cases once again soaring in Tamil Nadu
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday that the Centre is working on plans to procure 400-500 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, which will be administered to up to 250 million people by July 2021.
“Government plans to receive and utilise 400500 million vaccine doses. Our target is to cover 20-25 crore people by July 2021.
“For that, we are building capacities in HR, training, supervision, etc, on a massive scale,” he said at his weekly webinar ‘Sunday Samvaad’ for his social media followers.
The Minister said that a high-level commitee under Niti Aayog Member, Health, VK Paul is drawing up the entire process.
“Vaccine procurement is being done centrally and each consignment will be tracked real time until delivery to ensure it reaches those who need it most,” he said.
Harsh Vardhan said that these commitees are working on understanding the timelines of availability of various vaccines in the country, obtaining commitments from their manufacturers to make available maximum number of doses for India’s inventory, on supply chain management and also on prioritisation of high-risk groups.
“This is work in progress which will be completed by the time the vaccines are ready to ensure the swit roll-out of the immunisation programme,” he said.
He also indicated that the frontline workers and those having underlying health conditions are in the top priority list of the government for vaccine administration, saying that his ministry is currently preparing a format in which states will submit lists of priority population groups to receive the vaccine, especially health workers engaged in the management of COVID-19.
“The list of frontline health workers will include both government as well as private sector doctors, nurses, paramedics, sanitary staff, ASHA workers, surveillance officers and many other occupational categories who are involved in tracing, testing and treatment of patients,” he added.
“The vaccine will be distributed as per predecided priority and in a programmed manner. To ensure transparency and accountability, details of the entire process will be shared in the coming months,” he said.
Harsh Vardhan also informed that the states are being closely guided to also submit details about cold chain facilities and other related infrastructure which will be required down to the block level distribution of the vaccine.
“This exercise is targeted to be completed by the end of this October,” he said.
Covid 19 cases are once again soaring in Tamil Nadu, especially in Chennai, officials said on Sunday. While the state continued to report over 5,000 new infections, the capital has seen over 1,000 new cases everyday since September 24, they said.
Tamil Nadu added 5,622 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, taking the total number of persons tested positive in the state so far to 6,14,507.
In Chennai, 1,364 new cases emerged in the last 24 hours. With this, the total number of persons affected by the pandemic in the metropolis has reached 1,71,415. Active cases have risen during 10 days from 9,938 on September 24 to 12,311 on Sunday. Between September 23 and October 3, the city has reported 12,835 new cases.
A total of 174 persons have died from Covid in the past 10 days alone. The city has recorded 1,70,025 cases of Covid-19, of which 1,54,771 have recovered since the pandemic began in March.
Among neighb our ing districts, cheng al pat us aw 395 new cases in the last 24 hours, Kancheepuram 150 and Thiruvallur posted 290. Cuddalore and Coimbatore witnessed 145 and 486 new cases, respectively.
Another 65 deaths on Saturday has taken the total number of Covid fatalities in the state to 9,718.
The pandemic has affected more men than women.
As per data, 60.50 per cent of the patients are male and 39.50 per cent are female.
Around 19.29 per cent of those contracting the virus is from the age group of 50-59 years.
Tamil Nadu’s main opposition Dravida Munntera Kazhagam (DMK) has announced that its women wing chief and Lok Sabha member Kanimozhi will lead a march to the Governor’s residence, Raj Bhavan, on Monday to protest against the atrocities against women in Utar Pradesh. The immediate provocation for the march is the rape-murder of a teenager in Hathras.