The Health Ministry on Tuesday announced that it is preparing to roll out its coronavirus vaccination campaign within ten days as part of emergency use authorisation(EUA).
The government has said mass roll out of the coronavirus vaccines will begin around January 13-14. The two vaccine makers Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech have said with the emergency use authorisation given to both Covishield and Covaxin, the focus will be on manufacturing ample doses and efficient distribution.
The health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said there are four primary vaccine stores located in Mumbai, Karnal, Chennai and Kolkata, with 37 vaccine stores, which store vaccines in bulk. He informed that overall burden on health delivery structure has declined with 44 percent of active cases in the hospital with moderate or severe Covid-19 symptoms and 56 percent cases who have asymptomatic symptoms and are home quarantined.
There are 41 cold storage systems and vaccines will be distributed from these centres which would be digitally monitored, said the health ministry. The model sessions sites have been prepared, which includes 286 sites across 125 districts in all states and Union Territories. The vaccination teams have been identified and trained with all standard operating procedures used against novel coronavirus, informed the government.
The dry runs of the vaccination drive have completed in most states. The World Health Organisation, meanwhile, has recommended two doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine within a span of 21 to 28 days, while scientists explore if Moderna Covid vaccine can be halved in two.
Meanwhile, India has recorded 18,088 new cases on Wednesday, taking its tally to 1,03,74,932. The total fatalities rose to 1,50,114. Due to fear of new virus strain, the Centre has allowed the limited resumption of flights to the United Kingdom from Wednesday, the services which were completely suspended earlier.