Moving in the direction of bringing an end to the Covid-19 pandemic, the vaccine programme to control the infection was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today via video conferencing. On the first day of the world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination drive, over 3 crore healthcare and frontline workers will be inoculated.
The vaccines have already reached the designated vaccination centres across the country. The vaccine was welcomed by the medical staff in the hospitals as they cheered with joy. Health workers at Cooper Hospital, Mumbai clapped and cheered as the batch of the vaccine reached the hospital.
#WATCH | Health workers clap and cheer as COVID-19 vaccine reaches the vaccination centre at Cooper hospital in Mumbai, Maharashtra. pic.twitter.com/QOp2X15Cs8
— ANI (@ANI) January 16, 2021
A total 3,006 vaccination centres have been set up across the country in various districts of all the States and Union Territories. About 100 beneficiaries will be vaccinated at each vaccination site. The timing of the vaccination will be from 9 am to 5 pm barring the days on which routine immunisation programmes are scheduled.
Vaccination of pre-registered beneficiaries
According to Mint, every pre-registered beneficiary will be required to visit the vaccination centre at the designated time and date. The beneficiaries will be required to produce government identification while entering the vaccination centre after which they will be registered and sent to the vaccination room for inoculation. The process will be managed by the central government digitally through its own app called CoWIN. The app will be used to link every vaccine dose to its recipient.
The Central government had purchased 11 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVISHIELD vaccine produced by the Serum Institute and 5.5 million doses of COVAXIN produced by Bharat Biotech.