In a substantial development, on Tuesday, March 23, the Centre announced that the next phase of the vaccination drive for the coronavirus is to start from April 1.
In this phase, all people above the age of 45 can get vaccinated. While only healthcare and frontline workers were vaccinated at government facilities in the first phase, the inoculation drive was expanded to include people above 60 years of age and those aged above 45 years having comorbidities in the second phase. Meanwhile, there are 1,16,86,796 COVID-19 cases in India out of which 1,11,81,253 patients have recovered while 1,60,166 deaths have been reported.
Meanwhile, earlier on January 3, the Drugs Controller General of India accepted the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation which made way for the approval of Covishield and Covaxin. Manufactured by the Serum Institute of India with technology transfer from Oxford University-AstraZeneca, Covishield is a Recombinant Chimpanzee Adenovirus vector vaccine with its overall efficacy of 70.42 per cent whereas Covaxin is a Whole Virion inactivated coronavirus vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and NIV.
On the other hand, earlier on March 22, Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope stated that the Maharashtra government has requested to vaccinate 20 lakh doses per day as the state is witnessing a surge in COVID-19 cases. He further added that every day, three lakh vaccinations are happening and the government is trying to increase it by roping in private hospitals and setting up sub-centres in rural areas to make it convenient for the people.
Share
Tweet
