25 Cr Indians Will Get Corona Vaccine By July 2021: Union Health Minister

Union health minister Dr Harshavardhan announced that their department had made all arrangements to provide Corona vaccine to 25 crore people in the country by next July. He said that the government only would procure 40-50 crore doses.

The Union minister was answering several queries asked by the netizens during the ‘Sunday Samvaad’ programme being conducted every Sunday in the wake of Corona crisis.

He said that the clinical trials by several pharma companies to produce Corona vaccine have reached a critical stage. “Though we expect the vaccine to be ready by this yearend, its administration to the people will be possible only by next summer,” he said.

Harshavardhan said that the central government has a concrete plan to distribute the vaccine to the people. He said that the central government had asked the state government and Union territories to send their lists prioritising the groups to whom the vaccine should be administered first. Further, he said that doctors in government and private hospitals, nurses, paramedical staff, sanitation staff, Aasha workers, and others involved in the tracing, testing and treatment wings would be given the vaccine in the first phase.

He said that the government would be transparent in administration of the vaccine and ensure that there would be no blackmarketing of the doses. “There is a plan to administer the vaccine phase-wise prioritising the people who need is more urgent,” he said, adding that the government will take up steps to ensure that the vaccine reaches every citizen in the country. The officials are extending cooperation to all the companies involved in manufacturing the vaccine in the country, he said.

As per the statistics declared by the central health department, as many as 75,829 Covid-19 positive cases were registered and 940 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours. Now, the total tally of Corona cases in the country is 65.5 lakh and the death toll is 1,01,782. As India is recording a better recovery rate than other countries, as many as 55.10 lakh people had already been discharged after recovering from the infection and there are 9.4 lakh active cases.