NEW DELHI: The Central Drugs and Standards Committee, on January 3, officially approved the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Bharat Biotech and the Serum Institute of India (SII). This will allow the vaccines – Covishield by SII, which is based on the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech, to be offered to healthcare and frontline workers across India on emergency basis.
Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Health and Family Welfare, on January 2, announced that the vaccine will be administered to everyone for free. Government of India (GoI) has made it very clear that first in line for the vaccination drive will include around 1 crore healthcare workers and 2 crore frontline workers. Around 27 crore persons above age 50, and persons below age 50, but with associated comorbidities, have been included in third priority group and therefore will also be administered the vaccine in the first phase of the vaccination drive only. Dr Vardhan informed the press that India has trained 96,000 vaccinators, including 2,360 in a National Training of Trainers, and over 57,000 in district-level training carried out in 719 districts. He added that more than 75 lakh beneficiaries have been registered on the Co-WIN platform already, which will provide real-time information on vaccine stocks, their storage temperature, and individual beneficiaries of the shots.