The people of India will get Covid-19 vaccine from Jan 16 after the festivals like Makar Sankranti and Lohri ends, sources at the Ministry of Health said on Saturday.
The first to be given will be the frontline worriers like health workers. Their number is estimated to be 3 crore in India. Once the health professionals are administered with the vaccine, elderly people will be given the dose. To be precise, people above age 50 will be given the dose followed by those who have co-morbidities and under this category around 27 crore people fall.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas said India was ready to save humanity by providing doses of the two Indian-manufactured vaccines that have been cleared for emergency use, Covishield and Covaxin, to the rest of the world.
The Centre has started a new COVID platform to track particulars of potential vaccine beneficiaries and also issue electronic certificates to them. An Operational Guidelines for the roll out of the Covid-19 vaccine was issued by the Ministry on December 20 and States began conducting dry run from January 2.