Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday termed India's vaccination drive against the novel coronavirus as the beginning of the end of COVID-19.
"India is set to begin the world's biggest vaccination drive tomorrow. This is the beginning of the end of COVID-19. I appeal to people to trust the vaccine as both indigenously manufactured vaccines given emergency use approval after scientific scrutiny," Harsh Vardhan said while speaking to the media.
"One-Sixth of the worlds' population lives in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will officially launch the world's biggest vaccination drive tomorrow at 10 am. We are fully prepared and all arrangements are in place. Around 3 lakh Health care workers will be vaccinated at 3,006 vaccination centres across the country," he added.
Explaining about the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccination drive in India, Vardhan said, "In the first phase health care workers along with frontline workers will be vaccinated from tomorrow. In the coming phases, people with more than 50 years of age will be vaccinated. Later, people having co-morbidities and age less than 50 will be vaccinated."
Vardhan will visit the new OPD Wing of AIIMS, New Delhi tomorrow to join the AIIMS doctors and potential vaccine beneficiaries to participate in and witness the launch of the COVID-19 vaccination by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 10.30 am.
Over one crore and 5.27 lakh people have been infected by the virus in India so far, and close to 1.52 lakh have died. There are over 2.13 lakh active COVID-19 cases in India.
The Covid-19 vaccination in India will start from January 16. The central government has introduced an application named CoWIN (Covid Vaccine Intelligence Work) to monitor the entire vaccination process.
The full initial procurement amount of 1.65 crore doses of Covishield and Covaxin vaccines against Covid-19 have been allocated to all States/UTs in the proportion of Health Care Workers database, Union Health Ministry stated.
Two vaccines--Covaxin and Covishield-- have received Emergency Use Authorisation (EAU) after going through established safety and immunogenicity in a well-prescribed regulatory process and these will be administered during the vaccination drive.
( With inputs from ANI )
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