What will it take to vaccinate India against Covid-19?
Nothing of this scale has been attempted before. A mock drll for Covid-19 vaccine delivery in Chennai on January 2. | Arun Sankar/AFP
India’s Covid-19 vaccination drive will roll out next week. The government is aiming to vaccinate 300 million people – a quarter of the country’s population – by the end of the summer. The two approved vaccines in India’s arsenal need to be administered in two doses, which means 600 million shots will have to be delivered in the next six months.
That’s more than 20 times the number of pregnant women and children vaccinated as part of India’s universal immunisation program.
Covid Vaccination Drive To Begin On Jan 16, Landmark Step, Tweets PM Modi
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Updated Jan 08, 2021 | 12:40 IST
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has said COVID-19 “has shown the hardest times for all of us in last 10 months”. Representational image | Photo Credit: IANS
New Delhi: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has lauded Indian scientists and researchers, days after two COVID-19 vaccines were approved by the drug regulator. The Drugs Controller General of India had on January 3 approved two vaccines – Oxford University and AstraZeneca’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s indigenously-developed Covaxin – for restricted emergency use in the country.
Days later, the IMA today said Indian scientists and researchers had worked hard to make this a success. While Covaxin has been entirely developed indigenously, Covishield has been jointly developed by the UK’s Oxford University and pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca and it is being manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India, which is the largest manu
Setting the pace for vaccine rollout next week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual meeting with all chief ministers on Monday. The Prime Minister’s Office has confirmed that the meeting is being held to discuss the Covid-19 situation and vaccination rollout. The government is in the final stages of due diligence to ink a supply deal with Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech, which have got approval for emergency use of their vaccines. Health minister Harsh Vardhan has assured states that the vaccination exercise will begin in the next few days. “We started the preparations almost four to five months back to ensure that in a country as vast as India everything is done smoothly and meticulously,” Vardhan said while addressing the media at government General Hospital, Chennai, on the ongoing dry run of administering the coronavirus vaccine.
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