Covid 19 vaccine will be available in India, in first week of January, says health minister Dr. Harshvardhan
The union minister of Health and Family Welfare Dr. Harshvardhan has revealed to a news channel Aaj Tak that India may have the Covid vaccine in the first week of January. He added that his prime concern is the efficacy and safety of the vaccine.
The government has initially chosen the state of Assam, Punjab, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh to innoculate the first dose of Covid vaccine to the people of these states.
These states will witness the two day dry run on 28 and 29th December, in order to mobilise all elements involved in the Corona virus vaccination campaign/ drive which has been planned for the next year to test the vaccine delivery machinery.
The Covid 19 vaccine will be injected twice after a gap of some days to the vaccine takers.
The perfect arrangements for storing of these Covid 19 medicines in minus 7 or 8 degree Celcius have been made in various states of the country and the training programmes are also being conducted simultaneously on a war footing.
According to the latest news, initially four catagories of people will be given the first dose of the vaccine viz Corona warriors like doctors, paramedics, nurses etc followed by front line Corona workers like police, civil defence employees etc , thirdly those above fifty years and fourthly to those who are less than forty years but are the cormorbidity cases.
However the AIIMS director Dr. Randeep Gulleria has said that the vaccine should be given firstly to the senior citizens with comorbiditis as it is the most vulnerable lot followed by doctors, paramedics, police, civil defence employees etc.
Initially, about two crore people of front line Corona warriors will be given the vaccine followed by about fifty crore citizens above fifty years n one crore people with comorbities but below forty years etc.
In England about six lakh people have been innoculated with Pfizer and in America over twenty lakh people have been innoculated where as in other countries, the process in on.
The three manufacturers of Covid 19 vaccines Covishield, Pfizer and Covaxin have already applied for seeking early permission from the regulatory authority viz chief Drug Controller of India to innoculate their vaccines in emergency cases to start with. The third stage human trial of COVAXIN etc is still going on and the results are expected shortly.
