ICMR D-G: By July, 30 cr Indians to be vaccinated against Covid

LUCKNOW: India has 27,000 vaccine storage points and 30 crore people would be vaccinated against Covid-19 by July, said Dr Balram Bhargava, director general, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), on Monday.

“Our country has the experience of running the world’s largest immunisation programme. Over nine million sessions of immunisation are held every year and India has infrastructure for immunising 27million newborns, 30 million pregnant women and 100 million kids below five years of age,” he said while speaking on the Foundation Day of Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS).

He said the pandemic highlighted the importance of research in healthcare and there was a need to enhance the health sector budget. “For

the development of better health infrastructure, the country needs to bring its healthcare spending up from1% to 2.5% in the days to come,” emphasized Bhargava.

He said the Co-Win Digital Platform for vaccination delivery was ready. “It is an easy-touse mobile app for recording vaccine data, health worker updates, temperature loggers, beneficiary tracking, vaccination session management, beneficiary vaccination status and alerts on low stock,” said Bhargava.

Since the time Covid affected India, ICMR had evaluated 218 viral transport medium kits (VTM kits), approved 185 such kits, of which 173 were indigenous. The ICMR also evaluated 228 RNA extraction kits, approved 143, of which 87 were indigenous, he said.

Besides, the ICMR evaluated 172 rapid antigen test kits, out of which only 21 were approved and 12 of them were indigenous. The council evaluated 285 RT-PCR kits, approved 135 of them and 72 of these were indigenous.

He said India was at second place in the world in terms of testing Covid samples. “So far, more than 15.37 crore samples have been tested, which is only second to the US. The aggressive testing has helped the country keep Covid in control,” added Bhargava.

He said India was among the top five countries, which isolated the virus and started working on a vaccine. “Made in India vaccines would be cost effective and responsive. India is a major vaccine hub as it supplies 60% of vaccines to the developing world.”