On Saturday, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that free vaccine will be provided to healthcare and frontline workers in the first phase of inoculation. "In the first phase of coronavirus vaccination, free vaccine shall be provided across the nation to most prioritised beneficiaries that include 1 crore healthcare and 2 crore frontline workers. Details of how further 27 crore priority beneficiaries are to be vaccinated until July are being finalised,” Vardhan posted on Twitter.
Earlier, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) had recommended granting approval for restricted emergency use of Bharat Biotech's indigenous COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin in India. The move came a day after the panel recommended granting permission for restricted emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield, being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
India is embarking on a massive vaccination drive, with rehearsal processes all well underway. As India came closer to the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccine, a dry run was held by all states and union territories on Saturday in preparation for a massive inoculation drive, with Health Minister Harsh Vardhan appealing to people not to be misguided by "rumours" and disinformation regarding the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
Vardhan said that free vaccine would be provided in the first phase to the most prioritised beneficiaries, including one crore healthcare and two crore frontline workers. He said the details of how 27 crore priority beneficiaries, those above 50 years of age and those below it having comorbidities, would be vaccinated until July were being finalised.
The dry run involved 286 session sites spread across 125 districts. India has reported 1.03 crore COVID-19 cases so far and the exercise was held on a day an expert panel of the central drug authority recommended granting permission for restricted emergency use of the indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, with certain conditions, after giving similar direction for the Oxford vaccine Covishield.
"The states and UTs have expressed complete satisfaction on the successful conduct of the dry run which included the operational process and its linkages with the Co-WIN Software," the Union health ministry said in a statement.
More than 75 lakh beneficiaries have been registered on Co-WIN software which has been developed by the health ministry for real time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualised tracking of beneficiaries for COVID-19 vaccine, according to the statement.
Besides state capitals, some states also included districts that are situated in difficult terrain or have poor logistical support in the exercise. Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat conducted the mock drill in four districts each, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in five districts each while Rajasthan carried out the dry-run in seven districts.
The first dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Punjab on December 28-29 with at least 125 intended beneficiaries at five sites in a maximum of two districts each.
The number of fresh COVID-19 cases was recorded below 20,000 in India on Saturday, taking the country's caseload to 1,03,05,788, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease crossed 99 lakh, according to the health ministry.
The death toll due to the disease climbed to 1,49,218 in the country with 224 new fatalities, the ministry's data updated at 8am showed.
-Inputs from PTI