India COVID Vaccination, Across Inda, over 1.5 lakh staff have been trained.
New Delhi:
Nearly a year after India reported its first case of coronavirus from Kerala, the start of the end of the pandemic , as Health Minister Harsh Vardhan described it on Friday, began this morning with Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching the nationwide rollout. The government aims to vaccinate 1 crore healthcare workers and 2 crore frontline workers in the first phase.
Across the country, states have geared up for the task after three dry runs - two of them nationwide - in the last few weeks. India s Covid tally surged to 1.05 crore cases this morning with 15,158 new infections; over 1.5 lakh patients have died since the beginning of the pandemic.
Harsh Vardhan rebuts doubts raised by Congress over their safety
The science behind the COVID-19 vaccines is resolute, said Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday tweeting in response to Congress MP Manish Tewari’s post questioning their safety.
“Concerns that I have articulated are real and not imagined. It is not fear-mongering. Look what is happening in Norway. It may be a different vaccine but do not hide behind vaccine nationalism,’’ tweeted Mr. Tewari.
The Minister responded: “Our scientists have worked at lightning speed to expedite functions that contribute to the development of a vaccine but not a single function has been circumvented. Safety above all else has been the guiding principle!’’
Senior Congress leader Manish Tewari and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan sparred on Twitter on Saturday with the Opposition leader raising questions over the emergency use approval given to the indigenously developed vaccine Covaxin and the BJP leader hitting back alleging that Tewari was only passionate about spreading rumours.
A sanitation worker in All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi today became India's first person to be administered the first of the two-dose Covid-19 vaccine during the launch of the nationwide vaccination programme. As people around applauded the worker Manish Kumar, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria also received a shot of the Covaxin vaccine, reports our New