Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the pan-India Coronavirus vaccination drive on Saturday and around 3 lakh healthcare and frontline workers will be administered with the vaccine shots at 2,934 sites across the country on day 1, said VK Paul, member of plan body NITI Aayog.
"PM Modi will be beginning the vaccination program. The details are being worked out," Mr Paul said on the launch of one of the world's largest vaccination programmes which will take place two days later.
The vaccination drive will begin with 3,000 sites on Saturday. Each centre will inoculate 100 people a day, to begin with.
“As the program progresses, it will be increased up to 5,000 sites and more," Mr Paul said.
The government plans to inject 300 million high-risk people with anti-covid vaccine over the next few months. The first jab will be given to 30 million healthcare and frontline workers, followed by about 270 million people above 50 years of age.
Mr Paul said, "Vaccines have been allotted to states as per their healthcare workers data. Healthcare workers need not worry, I assure them. They should be role models.”
As per reports, PM Modi after the inauguration of the vaccination drive will virtually interact with health workers in some cities.
Batches of Covishield, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine being manufactured by Serum Institute of India, and indigenous Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, have been dispatched to 13 cities across the country for the first phase of vaccination.
About 110 lakh doses of Covishield at ₹ 200 per dose (excluding taxes)have been bought by the Centre, while 55 lakh doses of Covaxin have also been procured.
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The two doses of the Covid-19 vaccines have to be administered within a gap of 28 days and its effectiveness can be seen only after 14 days and urged people to keep following Covid appropriate behaviour.
States have been asked to make arrangements to deal with any Covid-19 vaccine-related side effects as one of the measures towards safe vaccine delivery.