COVID-19 vaccine will be first given to health workers from public and private sectors: Government.
The Delhi government has directed all public and private medical facilities to finish enrolling their healthcare workers by December 5 midnight for a COVID-19 vaccine, which should be available in a few weeks.
According to sources, many registered and non-registered facilities have already submitted this data as the process had started in October.
The government-run facilities that have not completed the task been told to upload the data on Delhi State Health Mission website -- https://dshm.delhi.gov.in. Private health facilities will have to seek login access to submit the names.
Healthcare workers include all medical, para-medical, supporting, security, sanitation and administration staff at centre of allopathy, dentistry, Ayush, physiotherapy, diagnostic and radiology labs.
The directive comes amid similar exercises being held across states, which recently attended a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on evaluating their preparedness for a vaccine rollout, including cold storage facilities and syringe availability.
India has eight potential vaccine candidates, of which three are indigenous.
According to the centre, a vaccine would be available in a few weeks and would be first administered to about 1 crore health workers, then 2 crore frontline workers and then high-risk individuals.
However, the government has maintained that the entire population may not be inoculated, and a decision would depend on vaccine efficacy.
"Our purpose is to break the chain of transmission. If we are able to vaccinate a critical mass of people and achieve it, we may not have to vaccinate the entire population," Director General ICMR Dr Balram Bhargav said recently.
Reacting to this information, the Delhi government had recently said that if "the vaccine is successful" it should be given to everyone, and that the state has the wherewithal to inoculate the entire city "within three to four weeks".
Delhi is among the worst-hit states by COVID-19, which has infected almost 6 lakh people and claimed 9,424 lives in the national capital so far.