New Delhi: India will increase the number of its COVID-19 vaccination sites by up to five times after administering nearly 9 million shots in a month, a government official was quoted as saying by NDTV on Tuesday.
Although India claims to be the fastest to reach many inoculation milestones, it is vaccinating around 300,000 frontline workers a day. This number will have to increase sharply to meet the government’s target of covering 300 million of its 1.35 billion people by August, experts said according to Reuters.
The ongoing vaccination of frontline workers such as nurses and doctors has taught India how to scale up the campaign, said Vinod Kumar Paul, who heads a government panel on vaccine strategy, at a news conference. “This learning will be of great use,” he said, hours after taking the second dose of a government-backed vaccine.
“We are currently running 10,000-11,000 immunisation sessions. We will do four to five times of that when we start the next phase; wait for the pace to pick up.”
India will begin immunising members of the public in March with those over 50 or with medical conditions. The country has covered 60 per cent of its nearly 10 million healthcare workers since starting the drive on January 16, though as many as 11 of the 36 states have not even reached the halfway mark, the report added.
