Prime Minister Narendra Modi today launched India’s vaccination drive via video conferencing against the novel coronavirus.
Total 3,006 session sites from across all the states and union territories were virtually connected during the launch of the drive. About 100 beneficiaries were vaccinated in each session site today, on the first day of the launch.
After the launch of India’s vaccination drive, chief minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray said he does not want to do any politics over immunization. There should be no inequality and all citizens have to be treated equally, he added.
Whatever we get to know about the availability of vaccine and its charges, we will be clear about that, said Thackeray.
As told by Health Minister Dr.Harsh Vardhan, it is the world’s largest vaccination program, which is covering the entire India, the drive aims to first vaccinate millions of healthcare and frontline workers and has planned to reach out an estimated figure of 3crore people in its first phase.
Along with session site the launch was attended by several Chief Ministers including Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy and Madhya Pradesh mhief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan at the government hospitals of their respective states.
The drugs regulatory body of India have currently approved two vaccines namely Covaxin and Covidshield.
Covaxin has been developed by Hyderabad’s Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Medical Council of research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology while Covidshield is Pune-based, developed by Serum Institute of India in collaboration with AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
As per the data of Union health ministry, the full initial procurement amount of 1.65 crore doses of Covishield and Covaxin vaccines against Covid-19 have been allocated to all States and UTs in the proportion of Health Care Workers database.
