NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the ‘world’s largest’ vaccination campaign on Saturday as the populous country seeks to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control, with two locally-produced shots.
Modi will address health workers through video conferencing, but will not immediately take the vaccine himself, as India initially prioritises nurses, doctors and others at the forefront.
On the first day, about 100 people will be voluntarily vaccinated in each of the 3,006 centers in the country, the government said this week, calling it the start of the largest such campaign in the world.
“This will be the world’s largest vaccination program covering the entire country and the entire country,” Modi’s office said in a statement this week.
India, the world’s most populous country after China, said it was not necessary to vaccinate all of its 1.35 billion people to create herd immunity. Covering even half of the population would still make it one of the largest vaccination programs in the world, even if countries like the United States were to vaccinate every resident.
However, beneficiaries cannot choose between the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine and a homemade one from Bharat Biotech whose effectiveness is unknown. Both are manufactured locally.
India, which has reported the highest number of coronavirus infections to the United States, wants to vaccinate about 300 million people with two doses in the first six to eight months of the year.
About 10.5 million people in India have been infected with the coronavirus, of which more than 151,000 have died, although the number of cases has declined since a peak in September.
The first vaccine is 30 million health and other frontline workers, such as those in terms of sanitation and safety, followed by about 270 million people over the age of 50 or considered at high risk due to medical conditions.
Modi, 70, said politicians would not be considered frontline workers.
On Saturday, he is also expected to formally inaugurate the government’s online platform Co-WIN which will provide information on vaccine supplies, storage temperature and keep track of the beneficiaries.
The government has already purchased 11 million doses of AstraZeneca COVISHIELD shot, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, and 5.5 million from Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN.
According to the Indian Drug Regulator, COVISHIELD is 72% effective, while Bharat Biotech says the results of COVAXIN are expected in the final stages of testing by March.
(Reported by Krishna N. Das; edited by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)