NEW DELHI/BENGALURU (INDIA) – Indian airlines has begun delivery of the batches of COVID-19 vaccines across the country on Tuesday. With this, India would be getting ready for the launch of a campaign, offering shots to 1.3 billion people, which according to officials, is the world’s biggest vaccination drive.
Authorities are planning to vaccinate 300 million high-risk people in the next six to eight months. Vaccinations are slated to begin on Saturday.
30 million health and other front-line workers would be the first to get the vaccine, followed by about 270 million people aged over 50 or deemed high-risk.
Airlines were estimated to deliver 5.65 million vaccine doses on Tuesday to different cities, aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Twitter.
Officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Gujarat state, said vaccine distribution was of utmost priority for them.
Nitin Patel, Gujarat’s deputy chief minister, said, “These vaccines will be taken to the cold storage from the airport and swiftly delivered to vaccination booths.”
Serum is providing some 11 million doses of the shot to the government at 200 rupees ($2.72) a dose, a source said.
Health authorities in eastern and western states said the experience from regular child immunisation programmes for polio would be used to make sure everyone gets covered, called the world’s biggest vaccination drive.