3 Cr Healthcare, Frontline Workers Shortlisted In Phase 1 Covid Vaccination Drive - Here's How Govt Plans Mega Rollout

As India is scheduled to begin its Coronavirus vaccination drive from January 16, here's all about the category of individuals who will be inoculated first and the digital system set up for the same.

(Representative Image/ Getty)

New Delhi: Finally an announcement over India's Coronavirus vaccine drive has come in as the Central government on Saturday announced that it is slated to begin in the country on January 16.  As informed by the Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan earlier, healthcare workers and the frontline workers, estimated to be around 3 crores are going to be the first priority. They will be followed by those above 50 years and the under-50 population groups with co-morbidities numbering around 27 crores. Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting to review the status of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country along with the preparedness of the State/UTs for vaccination. The meeting was attended by Cabinet Secretary, Principal Secretary to PM, Health Secretary and other senior officials.

Co-WIN Vaccine Delivery Management System

The Co-WIN Vaccine Delivery Management System is a unique digital platform that will be implemented in order to provide real-time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualized tracking of beneficiaries of the vaccine. This platform will assist the program managers across all levels through automated session allocation for pre-registered 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 platform. As the vaccinators and vaccine administrators are crucial to the vaccination exercise, their training process was detailed out for the Prime Minister. As informed, 2,360 participants have been trained during national level Training of Trainers which comprised state immunization officers, cold chain officers, IEC officials, development partners etc. More than 61,000 programme managers, 2 lakh vaccinators and 3.7 lakh other vaccination team members have also been made a part of training at States, Districts and Block levels. During the second nationwide dry run drive on Friday, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan had revealed that vaccination of the entire 1.3 billion population against Coronavirus would soon be a reality, adding that the Centre has started a new Covid platform to track particulars of potential vaccine beneficiaries and also issue electronic certificates to them.

Will All Indians Receive Vaccine From Jan 16?

Even though the vaccine drive begins on January 16, the common public will have to wait for an unspecified period as 'Covidshield' and 'Covaxin' were only been given restricted emergency use authorisation by the Drugs Controller General of India. So the first priority is healthcare professionals and frontline workers as seen in other countries like the UK and US where the inoculation drive began recently.