Covid-19 vaccine: 300k Indian healthcare workers to get jabs on first day

Officials unload boxes containing vials of Covishield vaccine outside a vaccination storage centre in Ahmedabad. — Reuters

New Delhi - India's vaccination drive to start on January 16 at 2,934 sites across the country.

By PTI

Published: Thu 14 Jan 2021, 9:02 AM

Around 300,000 healthcare workers will be inoculated at 2,934 sites across India on the first day of the massive nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive, which is set to begin from January 16, official sources have said.

Each vaccination session will cater to a maximum of 100 beneficiaries and the Union Health Ministry has advised states not to organise “unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day”.

“States have been advised to organise vaccination sessions taking into account 10 per cent reserve/wastage doses and an average of 100 vaccinations per session each day.

“Therefore, any undue haste on the part of states to organise unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day is not advised,” the ministry said on Wednesday.

It also said that states have also been advised to increase the number of vaccination session sites that would be operational every day in a progressive manner as the vaccination process stabilises and moves forward.

“Around 300,000 frontline healthcare workers will be inoculated at 2,934 sites across the country on the first day of January 16,” a source said.

The government on Tuesday hinted that vaccine recipients for now will not have the option to choose from the two vaccines — Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, Covishield, manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) and indigenously developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech — that have been approved for restricted emergency use in India.

According to the ministry, getting vaccinated will be voluntary.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had said on Tuesday: “At many places in the world more than one vaccine is being administered. But, presently, in no country vaccine recipients have the option of choosing the shots.”

According to the government, the shots will be offered first to an estimated 10 million healthcare workers, and around 20 million frontline workers, and then to persons above 50 years of age, followed by persons younger than 50 years of age with associated comorbidities.

The cost of vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers will be borne by the central government, officials had said.