India, with its huge magnitude faces a greater problem than the development of a vaccine- its production and distribution amongst 130 crore people. The government and frontline workers have been consistently working on the logistical front.
To analyse the whole situation more closely, Prime Minister Narendra Modi to held an in-house virtual meeting, yesterday, with all state Chief Ministers, to discuss covid situation and vaccine roll out. The talk was televised on Doordarshan for the masses to watch. The meeting was also attended by Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh
Until now 16th January has been decided as the date that the nation will begin the “world’s largest vaccination program”. The question that who would get the vaccine was addressed by PM. “Health workers, government as well as private, will be vaccinated first of all. Sanitation workers, other frontline workers, defence forces, police and other paramilitary forces will also be vaccinated in the first phase,” PM Modi said during his interaction with the CMs. The government also discussed the loopholes and outcomes of the dry runs that took place pan India.
An emotional moment for the team at @SerumInstIndia as the first shipments of #Covishield finally leave for multiple locations across India. pic.twitter.com/AmrZLesmj5
— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) January 12, 2021
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Indian Medical Association will also partner the government in covid vaccination which is going to take place in 3 phases. In first phase, transportation of vaccine at primary healthcare centres will take place and 1 Crore healthcare workers will be vaccinated. The cost of vaccinating health workers will be borne by the centre.
Until now, GOI has approved two vaccines for emergency use and 4 more are in development. According to sources, the government has placed an order worth Rs 1300 Crore with Serum Institute of India and Rs 162 Crore with Bharat Biotech for vaccines.
Each dose of Covishield is estimated to be priced at Rs 200 and with GST of Rs 10, it would cost Rs 210.
To facilitate the throughout, “Covin”- app will be launched by the centre in 1-2 days. Ajay Sawhney, Chairman of Empowered Group Technology and Data Management has also done a meeting with the government to discuss the working of this particular app.
200 million vaccines will be produced in India this year. It is planned that the vaccination process will be completed by September.
On the other hand, reports from Bhopal had been coming in which stated that an individual had died after getting vaccinated. But later it was found that it was not due to the vaccine but a poison that the individual had consumed.
As per latest developments, the first consignments of SII Vaccine arrived at the Ahmedabad and Delhi airport on Tuesday morning. The consignments were flown from Pune by private carriers.
