India to start mammoth vaccination drive on January 16

[aum]

India will launch one of the world's most ambitious coronavirus vaccination drives next Saturday, aiming to reach 300 million people by July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced.

 

The vaccine is to be free for the country's population of 1.3 billion, and Modi said the January 16 start would be "a landmark step" in fighting the pandemic.

 

India is the world's second worst-hit country—behind the United States—with more than 10 million cases, though the death rate is one of the world's lowest.

 

The first phase will target about 30 million health and other frontline workers including security forces and 270 million people over 50 or at highest risk from COVID-19.

 

The government has said it wants to have the first 300 million people innoculated by the end of July and has already staged mass trials of vaccination centres across the country.

 

About 150,000 staff in 700 districts have been trained and roughly 290,000 temperature-controlled supply points, 240 walk-in coolers, 70 walk-in freezers, 45,000 ice-line refrigerators are ready for use.

 

The government has approved two vaccines—AstraZeneca/Oxford University's Covishield and one produced by Indian pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech.

 

The world's biggest vaccine maker by number, Serum Institute of India (SII), says it has made about 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca product and is aiming to increase production to 100 million doses a month by March.

 

But the Indian government is yet to finalise a purchase deal with Serum, amid reports of wrangling with Serum over the price.

 

The number of new coronavirus cases reported each day has fallen dramatically in recent weeks.

 

But the announcement of the vaccination drive came after the health ministry said the number of people who have tested positive for a virulent new strain of the coronavirus found in Britain had increased to 90.

 

India only let flights from Britain restart on Friday following a 16-day suspension because of the new strain.

 

The Delhi regional government has ordered that all passengers from Britain must undergo 14 days of isolation, even if they test negative for COVID-19.

 

Authorities are still trying to trace thousands of passengers who arrived on flights from Britain before the suspension was ordered.

 

Source

 

[mood]

"Stand By India": Serum Institute Sends Out First Vaccines To 12 Cities

The vaccines will be flown from Pune in eight commercial flights, including two cargo flights, according to PTI.

 

 

New Delhi: The first batch of Covishield, the Serum Institute of India's coronavirus vaccine, left Pune early this morning, four days ahead of the nationwide inoculation drive against COVID-19.

 

Amid tight security, three temperature-controlled trucks rolled out of the Serum Institute gates with their precious cargo shortly before 5 am. The trucks carried 478 boxes of the vaccines, each box weighing 32 kg, news agency PTI reported quoting an unnamed official. A ''puja'' was performed before the vehicles left the facility for the Pune airport.

 

From the airport, the vaccines are being dispatched to 12 cities.

"Ready get set go! Stand by India! The vaccine to kill the disease is being loaded into the aircraft for distribution all over the country now," Pune airport tweeted.

Ready get set go!
Stand by India!
The vaccine to kill the disease is being loaded onto the aircrafts for distribution all over the country now.@AAI_Official@aairedwrpic.twitter.com/5lY9i4Tjdk

- PuneAirport (@aaipunairport) January 12, 2021

 

A SpiceJet flight carrying the vaccines left for the national capital around 8 am.

"We will be carrying multiple vaccine consignments to different Indian cities including Guwahati, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Patna and Vijayawada through the day today. SpiceJet is fully committed and prepared to transport the Covid vaccine both within and outside India. Today marks the beginning of a long and decisive phase in India's fight against the pandemic and SpiceJet is proud to assist in the biggest vaccination drive in the history of mankind," said Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet.

The vaccines are being flown out in eight commercial flights, including two cargo flights, according to PTI. The first cargo flight will cover Hyderabad, Vijayawada, and Bhubaneswar and the second cargo flight will go to Kolkata and Guwahati, PTI reported quoting a source.

 

The consignment for Mumbai will leave by road.

 

The government has ordered 1.01 crore doses of Covishield and plans to buy a total of 5.60 crore doses by April, at ₹ 200 per dose.

 

The Hindustan Lifecare Limited or HLL, a Central enterprise, is the agency which will buy the vaccines from both Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech.

 

Two vaccines -- the Covishield developed by the Oxford University and pharma major AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin -- received emergency use approval from the Drug Controller of India earlier this month. Both are two-dose vaccines, which will have to be administered at a 28-day gap.

 

The rollout of the vaccines has been scheduled for January 16. The government has said that 30 crore people - starting with health workers and frontline workers like the police, civil defence personnel and sanitation workers - will be administered the vaccine in the first phase.

 

After them, the other vulnerable group, people who are over the age of 50 years and those who suffer from co-morbid

 

 

Source: "Stand By India": Serum Institute Sends Out First Vaccines To 12 Cities

[mood]

India kicks off 'world's largest' vaccination campaign

 

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the “world’s largest” vaccination campaign on Saturday as the populous nation tries to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control starting with two locally-manufactured shots.

 

FILE PHOTO: A medic fills a syringe with COVAXIN, an Indian government-backed experimental COVID-19 vaccine, before administering it to a health worker during its trials, at the Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society in Ahmedabad, India, November 26, 2020. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo

 

Modi will address healthcare workers through video conferencing but will not immediately take the vaccine himself as India is initially prioritising nurses, doctors and others on the front line.

 

On the first day, around 100 people will be voluntarily vaccinated in each of the 3,006 centres in the country, the government said this week, calling it the start of the biggest such campaign in the world.

“This will be the world’s largest vaccination programme covering the entire length and breadth of the country,” Modi’s office said in a statement this week.

 

India, the world’s most populous country after China, has said it may not need to vaccinate all of its 1.35 billion people to create herd immunity. Still, covering even half its population will make it one of the largest immunisation programmes in the world, even if countries like the United States were to vaccinate every resident.

 

Beneficiaries, however, will not be able to choose between the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine and a government-backed, homegrown one from Bharat Biotech whose efficacy is not known. Both are being produced locally.

 

India, which has reported the highest number of coronavirus infections after the United States, wants to vaccinate around 300 million people with two doses in the first six to eight months of the year.

 

Some 10.5 million people in India have been infected with the coronavirus, more than 151,000 of whom have died, though the rate of cases has come down since a mid-September peak.

 

First to get the vaccine will be 30 million health and other frontline workers, such as those in sanitation and security, followed by about 270 million people older than 50 or deemed high-risk because of pre-existing medical conditions.

 

Modi, 70, has said politicians will not be considered frontline workers.

 

On Saturday, he is also expected to formally inaugurate the government’s online platform Co-WIN that will provide information on vaccine stocks, storage temperature and keep track of beneficiaries.

 

The government has already bought 11 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVISHIELD shot, produced by the Serum Institute of India, and 5.5 million of Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN.

COVISHIELD is 72% effective, according to the Indian drug regulator, while Bharat Biotech says COVAXIN’s last-stage trial results are expected by March.

 

 

Source: India kicks off 'world's largest' vaccination campaign