Plan to cover one-fifth population with Covid vaccine by July: Harsh Vardhan

The Indian government is working on procuring 400-500 million Covid-19 vaccines which will help to reach out to one-fifth of the population by July 2021. 

Talking to social media followers in his weekly webinar ‘Sunday Samvaad’, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday, “Our target is to cover 20-25 crore people by July 2021. For that, we are building capacities in HR, training, supervision, etc, on a massive scale.” 
The Minister said that a high-level committee under Niti Aayog Member, Health, V.K. Paul is drawing up the entire process. “Vaccine procurement is being done centrally and each consignment will be tracked real time until delivery to ensure it reaches those who need it most,” he said.

The Health Secretary at the Ministry of health and family welfare has written to Secretaries of all states and National Health Mission Directors, immunization officers and state cold chain officers to devise plan for robust mechanism for storage of vaccines and maintenance of the cold chain.

Harsh Vardhan said that these committees are working on understanding the timelines of availability of various vaccines in the country, obtaining commitments from their manufacturers to make available maximum number of doses for India’s inventory, on supply chain management and also on prioritization of high-risk groups.

Image courtesy of (Image courtesy: videograb)

Share this post