COVID-19 vaccination drive: India begins administration of second dose

India started inoculating healthcare workers against the novel Coronavirus infection on January 16 this year. Since it is now 28 days, the healthcare workers can now be administered with the second dose of Covid-19 vaccine. On the 29th day of the vaccination drive (Saturday), India has started giving the second dose of vaccination to the beneficiaries, maintaining the required gap of 28 days. As of February 12, 7.8 million people in the country have been given vaccine jabs of which 58,65,813 are healthcare workers and remaining 19,00,506 are frontline workers.

Under the largest vaccination drive, India is preparing itself to inoculate 300 million people by July-end. This is inclusive of healthcare workers, frontline staffers along with people above the age of 50. Come March, India will initiate the third phase of the vaccination drive where 27 crore people aged 50 years and above and those having co-morbidities will be given COVID-19 vaccination.

The national capital has already started to administer the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Saturday. According to a tweet by ANI, healthcare workers who were given vaccination on Day 1 (January 16) are given the second dose of vaccine today across hospitals in Delhi. Similarly in Pune, healthcare workers are receiving their second vaccine jab. Citing Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) medical chief Dr Ashish Bharati, a report by The Indian Express noted that not everyone who received a vaccine on January 16 will be administered as there is a holiday in offices and people have not turned up. Only those who are present in hospitals on duty will be given the vaccine today and others will be taken from Monday onwards. “We will be maintaining a separate record of beneficiaries who will be given the second dose of the vaccine,” the report quoted Bharati as saying.