India’s vaccination drive, the world’s largest immunisation exercise against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), will kick off on January 16 in view of the forthcoming festivals, including Lohri, Makar Sankranti, Pongal, Magh Bihu etc, the government said on Saturday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it a “a landmark step” in the fight against the pandemic.
The decision was taken in a high level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the status of Covid-19 in the country along with the preparedness of the states and union territories for Covid vaccination.
10 things to know about the the world’s largest immunisation exercise against the coronavirus disease:
1. Priority will be given to around one crore healthcare workers and two crore frontline staff, like doctors, community health workers and police, who are directly involved in fighting the pandemic. The vaccine will be free of cost for this group, Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said last week.
2. The next group will be people over 50, followed by those under 50 but with co-morbidities. Around 30 crore people will be vaccinated in the first phase.
3. Indian drug regulator has granted the emergency use authorisation or accelerated approval for two vaccines, Serum Institute of India developed Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, which have established safety and immunogenicity.
4. Modi also reviewed India's Co-WIN Vaccine Delivery Management System - a digital platform that will provide real time information of vaccine stocks, storage temperature and tracking of beneficiaries, the statement said.
5. The Co-WIN application is yet to be launched for the common man. There is no official word on the exact date of the launch of this app. However, the application is in the pre-product stage being accessed by health officials who are uploading the data of the health workers who will get vaccines in the first stage.
6. The Union health minister has earlier said that people would be able to self-register themselves for vaccine through this app. Once launched, the app will have four modules: User administrator module, beneficiary registration, vaccination and beneficiary acknowledgement and status updation.
7. 2,360 participants have been trained during national level Training of Trainers which comprised state immunization officers, cold chain officers, development partners among others.
8. More than 61,000 programme managers, 200,000 vaccinators and 370,000 other vaccination team members have been trained so far as part of trainings at states, districts and block levels.
9. Serum Institute has 50 million doses of vaccines packed at its Pune plant and another 50 million doses are ready to be packed. It can now make around 60-70 million doses per month and once a third plant comes online adjacent to its existing site, it can make 100 million doses per month.
10. Delhi became the first state to announce its schedule for Covid-19 vaccination for health care workers, who will be inoculated in the phase 1 of the vaccination drive.
