India has launched one of the largest Covid-19 vaccination programs in the world, the first major developing country to launch the vaccine. This is the beginning of an effort to immunize more than 1.3 billion people.
The first dose was given to a health worker at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the campaign with a national television speech.
India Affairs
“We are launching the world’s largest vaccination campaign and it shows the world our ability,” Modi said. He begged citizens to keep their hats off and not believe any “rumors about the safety of the vaccines”.
It is not clear whether Modi (70), like other world leaders, received the vaccine as an example of its safety. His government said politicians would not be considered priority groups in the first phase of implementation.
India has registered more than 10.5 million cases of coronavirus, the second highest in the world and 151,000 deaths. The government has been preparing for weeks for vaccination vaccines, and in the past few days has been sent to more than 3,000 sites set up for injections.
The Indian Ministry of Health has drawn up plans for 300 million people, which is almost equal to the population of the US, to be vaccinated by August. Frontline health care workers, police and the military took precedence, with those over 50 and with the following illnesses, all for free. Maharashtra, the home of Mumbai and the state worst affected by the coronavirus, plans to vaccinate 50,000 health workers on the first day of vaccination.
In the big country, more than 200,000 inmates and 370,000 team members were trained for the launch. Large-scale test runs have been conducted in at least four states, and authorities have prepared 29,000 refrigeration units to transport and keep the vaccine safe.
Two vaccines have received emergency approval for India’s vaccination program; the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, known in India as Covishield, and a domestic product, Covaxin, developed by the pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech.
The approval of Bharat Biotech’s vaccine, co-sponsored by an Indian government body, has proved controversial. Covaxin is still in phase 3 human trials and a complete data set on its efficacy has not been released or peer-reviewed, unlike the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine or the Pfizer and Modern vaccines used in the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom. United States approved.
The Indian Medicine Controller General, VG Somani, maintained that Covaxin is ‘100% safe’.
The government ordered 5.5 million doses of Covaxin and 11 million doses of Covishield. Boxes Covishield was sent with the message “may all be disease free”.
It is important that both vaccines are produced domestically for availability and low cost. The Serum Institute of India, one of the largest vaccine manufacturers in the world, has already produced and stored approximately 50 million doses of Covishield.
The institute has billions of pre-orders from countries around the world who are also desperate for the vaccine. The Indian government is negotiating how much stock should be released for export, given fears it could lead to a domestic shortage.
The government faces another challenge with the growing opposition to vaccine in India. According to a survey of more than 8,000 people conducted by Local Circles, 69% of Indians are reluctant to get the vaccine.