COVID-19 vaccination drive to kick off in India on January 16

The Union Health Ministry said on Saturday that the muchawaited coronavirus vaccination drive will kick off on January 16It was decided that in view of the forthcoming festivals including Lohri Makar Sankranti Pongal Magh Bihu etc the Covid19 vaccination will start from January 16 2021 the ministry said in a statementThe rollout of Covid19 vaccine will give priority to the healthcare and frontline workers who are estimated to be around 3 crore followed by those above 50 years of age and the under50 population groups with comorbidities numbering around 27 croreOn January 3 two vaccines Bharat Biotechs Covaxin and OxfordAstraZenecas Covishield manufactured by Serum Institute of India were approved for restricted emergency useEarlier on Saturday Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a highlevel meeting to review the status of Covid19 in the country along with the preparedness of the states and UTs for the vaccination driveThe Prime Minister took a detailed and comprehensive review of the status of Covid management covering various issues Modi was also briefed about the preparedness status of the Centre in close collaboration with the state and UT governments for the rollout of the vaccineThe Prime Minister was also apprised about the CoWIN vaccine delivery management system The unique digital platform will provide real time information of vaccine stocks their storage temperature and individualised tracking of the beneficiaries of the Covid19 vaccineThis platform will assist the programme managers across all levels through automated session allocation for preregistered beneficiaries their verification and for generating a digital certificate upon successful completion of the vaccine schedule More than 79 lakh beneficiaries have been already registered on the platformAs the vaccinators and vaccine administrators comprise a crucial pillar of the vaccination exercise their training process was detailed out A total of 2360 participants were trained during the national level Training of Trainers which comprised state immunisation officials cold chain officials IEC officials and development partners among othersMore than 61000 programme managers 2 lakh vaccinators and 37 lakh other vaccination team members have been trained so far as part of the trainings in the state district and block levelsThe Prime Minister was also apprised on the three phases of dry runs which have been conducted across the country The third dry run was conducted on Friday across 615 districts covering 4895 sites in 33 states and UTsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever