NEW DELHI: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said that the vaccination drive against coronavirus will be carried out at 81 centres across the national capital from January 16, on four days in a week.
Arrangements are in place to vaccinate 100 person daily at each of these 81 centres, ensuring inoculation of over 8,000 persons every day. The number of centres will be subsequently increased to 175, and then to 1,000, he added.
The vaccination in the first phase will be conducted on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Addressing a press conference virtually, two days ahead of the launch of the world’s largest vaccination drive in India, Kejriwal said that the vaccination against other diseases will be taken up on Wednesdays and Fridays so that other patients did not suffer.
“The vaccination drive against coronavirus will begin from January 16 across the country and the Delhi government has made all preparations. I reviewed the preparations today (Thursday) in a meeting with officials,” Kejriwal said.
The Aam Aadmi Party leader said that the Delhi government had received 2.74 lakh vaccine doses so far. “As two doses will be administered to each person, and given the 10 per cent extra doses given by the Centre to deal with damage cases, these vaccine doses will be sufficient for 1.30 lakh healthcare workers,” Kejriwal said.
Kejriwal said he hoped that the Centre will provide more doses very soon as the numbers were not enough to inoculate all healthcare workers.
In all, 2.40 lakh healthcare workers have registered for the vaccination drive in Delhi in the first phase.
The Drug Controller General of India has approved ‘Covishield’ and ‘Covaxin’ vaccines for emergency use. The Oxford University and AstraZeneca have developed ‘Covishield’, which has been manufactured in India by Serum Institute of India in Pune. Bharat Biotech has developed ‘Covaxin’.