PM to launch campaign via video conferencing today at 10:30 am; Vardhan says it is beginning of the end of coronavirus pandemic
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off the first phase of the pan-India rollout of world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination drive on Saturday at 10:30 am via video conferencing.
The drive involves two vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin — developed by AstraZeneca-Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech respectively.
A day before the vaccination drive against coronavirus, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday said the step is “probably the beginning of the end” of Covid-19. The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had earlier this month approved Oxford Covid-19 vaccine Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute, and indigenously developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech for restricted emergency use in the country, paving the way for a massive inoculation drive.
This vaccination programme will cover the entire length and breadth of the country, with a total of 3006 session sites across all States and UTs which will be connected virtually throughout the exercise.
In the first phase, priority groups and healthcare workers, both in Government and private sectors, including ICDS workers, in all-around 100 beneficiaries will be vaccinated at each of the session sites. Adequate doses of both vaccines have been already delivered across the country. India, which reported first Covid case late January last year is currently the world’s second worst-hit country with over 1.05 crore cases and over 1.51 lakh deaths. Over, 213,000 cases are currently active.
The phased rollouts will initially vaccinate one crore healthcare and two crore frontline workers, followed by around 27 crore senior citizens and people with co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension, organ transplants, etc. In all, 30 crore people are going to be inoculated by July this year.
Speaking at the 146th India Meteorological Department foundation day, Vardhan cautioned that even if the vaccination drive is on, there should not be lowering of guard and people must follow Covid-19 appropriate behaviour.
“Tomorrow is an important day...It is the last phase of the battle against coronavirus. I say, this is probably the beginning of the end of Covid now which is going to start tomorrow,” Vardhan, who is also Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Minister, said.
The Minister on Friday also reviewed preparations for the vaccination drive as he visited the Dedicated Covid Control Room which has been set up on the Nirman Bhawan premises of the Ministry.
He scrutinised the working of CoWIN, an online digital platform, which will be used to drive the Covid-19 vaccination programme in the country. It will facilitate real-time information of vaccine stocks, storage temperature and individualised tracking of beneficiaries for Covid-19 vaccine. This digital platform will assist programme managers across national, State, and district levels while conducting vaccination sessions. It will help them track beneficiary coverage, beneficiary dropouts, sessions planned v/s sessions held and vaccine utilisation, said an official from the Ministry.
The platform enables national and State administrators to view & sort data of beneficiaries as per their gender, age & co-morbidity. They can also view the metadata of vaccinations and Adverse Event Following Immunization reported from constituent districts across States and UTs.
