India would soon be undertaking the world’s “biggest vaccination drive” and to ensure all states are geared up for it Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual meeting with the Chief Ministers today afternoon. In the meeting that is slated to begin at 4 pm, the Chief Ministers will talk about the preparations for the planned vaccination and other issues. The Prime Minister will be notified about the roll-out of the vaccine and the current Covid-19 scenario in their respective states.
The digital meet would be vital, coming ahead of the roll-out of two Covid-19 vaccines from 16 January. It is going to be the first interaction between Narendra Modi and the CMs after the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) gave restricted, emergency-use approval to Oxford Astrazeneca’s vaccine ‘Covishield’, manufactured in India by Serum Institute of India, and Bharat Biotech’s ‘Covaxin’. The Prime Minister has virtually interacted with the Chief Ministers at least six times following Covid-19 outbreak.
Three rounds of the dry run of the immunisation drive have been conducted in India so far and there’s still a week’s time to improve on the weak areas identified during these drills. Under India’s vaccination drive, one crore healthcare workers and two crore frontline workers would be inoculated in phase I. Besides this, the Centre plans to vaccinate 27 crore people who are at a greater risk of contracting the virus. PM-CARES fund might be used to purchase the vaccines. The government had earlier allocated Rs 100 crore from the fund for the development of vaccines.
Meanwhile, training for the vaccination drive is almost complete in all states and doctors, nurses and pharmacists are ready to vaccinate the beneficiaries. Around five vaccine officers would be deployed at each vaccination centre: one to check the registration status of beneficiaries, another to verify documents, and three others to manage crowds and do other necessary works. On 3 January, ‘Covaxin’ and ‘Covishield’ were approved for restricted emergency use in India. Both are two-dose vaccines.
India on Sunday reported 18,444 new cases of Covid-19, while 201 people succumbed to the deadly virus. According to the data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 1,04,50,284 people have been infected with the virus so far. While the active cases stand at 2,23,335, 1,00,75,950 people have recovered.
The Health Ministry has said, “The focused efforts of Centre and State/UT governments on effective clinical management of the hospitalised cases have ensured a sustained decline in India’s fatality rate which is 1.44% now.” Maharashtra remains the worst affected state with total cases mounting to 19,15,529, while 50,027 people have died so far of which 57 succumbed to the virus in the last 24 hours.