Covid-19 vaccine rollout set to start next week

 The government will roll out the covid-19 vaccine next week with health secretary Rajesh Bhushan saying this was set to happen in 10 days of emergency use authorization being granted. The Indian regulator granted the EUA on January 3.

This is the first time the government has officially spoken of a schedule for the launch of the much-awaited vaccination drive against the pandemic that has gripped the whole world since early 2020. The drug regulator announced a grant of restricted emergency use authorization to two companies- Pune-based Serum Institute of India for Covishield, the vaccine developed by Oxford University and Astra Zeneca, and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech that has developed Covaxin in collaboration with the ICMR. The vaccination drive will simultaneously begin across the country to initially inoculate three crore healthcare and frontline workers.

A vaccine would soon be air transported to 4 key stores

The government has already uploaded data related to these recipients on Co-WIN- the IT platform that will be used extensively to implement the immunisation programme against Covid-19.

"Since this is a bulk database of healthcare and frontline workers, it has already been pre-populated on Co-WIN and there is no need for these beneficiaries to self register themselves for the vaccination. However, priority group will have to register as that set of data would require editing,'' Bhushan said.

Explaining the process of vaccine delivery, Bhushan said the vaccine would soon be air transported by the manufactures to four primary vaccine stores or depots located in different regions- Karnal, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. The vaccines will travel in refrigerated vans to reach 37 state vaccine stores.

States and UTs will further supply vaccines to district stores and then to primary health centres and sub-centres that are the actual vaccination sites in public and private hospitals, clinics and CHCs. The whole process will involve over 29,000 cold chain points and will be closely monitored through the vaccine intelligence network-enabled Co-WIN.

Bhushan said temperature trackers at each point of the vaccine supply chain would enable uploading of information on a real-time basis about the temperature being maintained at any facilities or during transport of vaccine. This data will be uploaded on a central platform, which will be monitored on a real-time basis, he said. 

India has also decided to extend the Co-WIN application to other countries and the government said it will actively assist those willing to use it.