New Delhi: As India gears up to launch world's largest immunisation drive, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday said that one crore health workers and 2 crore front line workers in the country would be given free COVID-19 vaccine in the first phase of the inoculation drive.
"In the first phase of vaccination, free vaccine will be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that include one crore healthcare and 2 crore frontline workers," Vardhan said in a tweet.
He, however, added, that the details of how the remaining 27 crore priority beneficiaries will be vaccinated till July is getting finalised.
The central government plans to vaccinate nearly 30 crore persons in the first phase of the immunisation drive. The vaccine will be administered to one crore healthcare workers, along with 2 crore frontline and essential workers, and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 with comorbidities.
The comment is significant, given the fact that India has recorded the second highest numbers of corona infections after the United States.
Earlier in the day, the Health Minister had said that the vaccine will be free across the country. "Not just in Delhi, it will be free across the country," Vardhan said when asked for the government's position on the issue.
Notably, the coronavirus vaccine is slated to be rolled out soon as the one developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca has been recommended by an expert panel, tasked with vetting Covid-19 vaccine proposals, and forwarded to the Drug Controller General of India for approval.
Once formalized, the vaccine – globally known as AZD1222 – will be the first silver bullet for the country, which has witnessed over one crore cases and nearly 1.5 lakh deaths till now.
A mega-drill is being conducted in all the states and union territories across 259 sites on Saturday to equip the administration in management of vaccine supply, storage and logistics, including cold chain management.
The objective of the dry run for COVID-19 vaccine introduction is to assess operational feasibility in the use of Co-WIN application in field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation.
Each mock drill site will have a waiting area, observation room and vaccination room.
There are 25 beneficiaries – all health care workers – who will be present at each site and vaccination team will demonstrate how they will be registered, how vaccines will be given, and how they will be monitored for adverse events.
On December 28 and 29, dry run for the COVID-19 vaccination was conducted in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh; Rajkot and Gandhinagar district of Gujarat; Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar of Punjab and Sonitpur and Nalbari districts of Assam.
