India is one of the world’s biggest drugmakers and has already sent consignments of coronavirus vaccines under grant assistance to several countries in South Asia.
A week into India’s vaccination drive, which began on January 16, nearly 1.3 million (12.7 lakh) shots have been administered, the health ministry said, by Thursday night ,10.4 lakh vaccines had been given.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said it has identified 51 lakh people who will be the first ones to get Covid-19 vaccination in the city under the Central government’s “priority category”.
Addressing a digital press conference, the chief minister said currently Delhi has built and arranged storage capacity for 74 lakh doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. He said the storage capacity in the city will be increased further to 1.15 crore doses in a week’s time. Kejriwal further said that each of the 51 lakh identified persons is being registered and an SMS will be sent to the person’s mobile number notifying him/her about the date, time and place of vaccination.
As India supplies Covid vaccines to countries in South Asia, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Friday said that the government is also undertaking contractual supplies of coronavirus vaccines to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, Morocco, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
“Keeping in view the domestic requirements of the phased rollout, India will continue to supply COVID-19 vaccines to partner countries over the coming weeks and months in a phased manner. It will be ensured that domestic manufacturers will have adequate stocks to meet domestic requirements while supplying abroad, MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said.
The country has rolled out a massive vaccination drive, under which two vaccines–Covishield and Covaxin–are being administered to frontline health workers across the country. While Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield is being manufactured by the Serum Institute in Pune, Covaxin has been produced by Bharat Biotech.
Here we take a look at the countries where assistance has reached from India.
Public health officials revealed that the biggest mistake one can make after receiving the first Covid-19 vaccine shot is immediately going back to socialising. The health officials, stated that resuming lives as they were before Covid-19 right after getting the vaccination can be a risky move.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also stressed that the full protection against the virus will only be achieved after the administration of the second dose of the vaccine.
The second dose is set to be administered three to four weeks after the first dose. CDC revealed that it may take up to 12 to 14 days for the vaccines to yield results.
With the start of the first phase of the country-wide vaccination drive against COVID-19, Daimler Indian Commercial Vehicles (DICV) and Motherson Sumi have launched a customised refrigerated truck to transport the vaccines.
While the 28 tonne BharatBenz truck is made by the Chennai-based truck and bus maker DICV, the refrigerated container mounted on it is developed by the Motherson Sumi Group, India’s largest auto component maker.
The purpose-built truck can store vaccines up to a maximum of negative 20 degree which can be monitored at all stages of the delivery process. The truck comes with an app that monitors the temperature during the entire transit process to maintain the efficacy of the vaccine.
For security purposes Motherson Sumi has even installed sensors on the vehicle which can alert the driver in case the doors are opened during transit.
