On Day 1 of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, 1.65 lakh beneficiaries vaccinated across 3,351 sites in India

PM Narendra Modi launched the world’s biggest inoculation drive in the country today at 10:30 am via video conferencing. The COVID-19 vaccination drive has been planned in a phased manner, identifying priority groups. The first phase of India’s coronavirus vaccination drive started at 11 am across several cities in India and ended at 5:30 pm.

In the first phase of the vaccination drive, around 3 crore frontline workers including doctors, healthcare workers, Safai Karamcharis etc will be given the vaccine. After that, people above 50 years of age, and people below 50 with co-morbidities, estimated around 27 crore, will be selected for vaccination. Therefore, around 30 crore people will be vaccinated in this round.

According to the Health Ministry, by the end of day-1 of the coronavirus inoculation drive, 1,91,181 beneficiaries were vaccinated at 3,352 sites in the country. In a press briefing, Additional Health Secretary M Agnani added that 16,755 personnel were involved in the drive.

#LargestVaccineDrive

In the world's largest #COVID19 vaccination program, 191,181 beneficiaries were vaccinated across the country today. pic.twitter.com/elw6s32fja

— Ministry of Health (@MoHFW_INDIA) January 16, 2021

The additional Health Secretary informed that both types of vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, were supplied for vaccination. While the Covishield vaccine developed by Serum Institute of India Ltd was supplied to all states and UTs, Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech International Ltd, was given 12 states.

The Ministry furthered that adequate quantities of vaccine and logistics were ensured at all COVID-19 vaccination session sites across the country.

Since today was the 1st day of the vaccination drive, minor hiccups with the Co-Win app, which not only does the inventory management but also the beneficiary management, were highlighted during the campaign which the government resolved simultaneously. Amongst the problems incurred were delay in uploading of the beneficiary list at some sites which was countered by optimising speed and system performance. Secondly, few healthcare workers, though not scheduled for today’s session, were vaccinated today. To ensure that this does not happen in the future, the Health Ministry advised states to upload details of such health workers in Co-Win database.

The Health Ministry summarised the press briefing by informing that, all in all, the day-1 of the vaccination drive was successfully conducted all over the country with no cases of post-vaccination hospitalization reported from any states/UTs.

The state-wise number of people vaccinated today is given below.

Billed as the world’s largest vaccination program, covering the entire length and breadth of the country, the drive aims to first inoculate millions of its healthcare and frontline workers and reach an estimated 3 crore people by the end of its first phase. The drive will be held daily from 9 am to 5 pm, except on the days earmarked for routine immunisation programmes.

Manish Kumar, a sanitation worker, became the first person to receive the Coronavirus vaccine at the AIIMS Delhi under India’s coronavirus vaccination drive that was launched today. Kumar received the vaccination in presence of Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.