COVID-19 Vaccination Drive: Check Countries’ Preparedness

Bhubaneswar: The countries across the globe are on war footing to put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. For doing so, several countries have either started vaccination drives or have given hasty approvals of vaccines. Few countries have also signed agreements for vaccine delivery while some are still in the process of testing vaccine candidates.

As the fight against the pandemic reaches a crucial stage, here’s where some countries stand with regards to their vaccination drives.

India is just a step away from getting its first COVID-19 vaccine with the nod of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) awaited after the expert panel cleared the proposals. The dry run for the vaccine has already started in the states.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that the country will be the first to “emerge” from the pandemic if all cooperate. The health providers are administering the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at a rate of 150,000 people a day — almost 2 per cent of the population.

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said that priorities during his country’s presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) would be the “success of the vaccination” against the COVID-19 and the “economic and social recovery of Europe”. Portugal assumed the Presidency of the EU Council for the fourth time on Friday, according to a report from Xinhua news agency.

Ireland had approved the Pfizer-BioNTech SE vaccine with the first batch of vaccination already started during the Christmas.

The British government has vaccinated more than 600,000 people since the immunisation drive started on December 8.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had approved the first batch of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. Canada has already started the vaccination drive of Pfizer’s candidate.

Mexico and Chile had also joined the countries which have started vaccination drives. Both countries have approved the Pfizer-BioNTech SE vaccine.

Morocco’s health minister Khalid Ait Taleb had ordered for 65 million vaccine doses from China’s Sinopharm and UK’s Oxford-AstraZeneca.