PM Modi To Meet Chief Ministers On Monday Over Coronavirus Vaccine Rollout

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Monday chair a meeting with the chief ministers of all states regarding vaccination against the coronavirus that is expected to start later this month. The meeting will be held at 4 PM, sources said.

The meeting to discuss vaccine rollout comes days after the country's drug regulator approved restricted emergency use of two vaccines against Covid - Serum Institute's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin.

Covishield - developed by Oxford University and being manufactured by Serum Institute - is over 70 percent effective. Covaxin is currently on phase 3 trials but is "safe and provides a robust immune response," the drug regulator had said last week.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan today said that the vaccines could be made available as early as the "next few days".

The government has ensured that every detail of the vaccination programme is conveyed to the people, he added.

The minister today reviewed the second national dry run to test the country's vaccine delivery system before rollout.

In the first phase of vaccination, the government plans to inoculate 30 crore people from the priority groups like frontline health workers, elderly people and those with comorbidities.

The first to be inoculated will be healthcare professionals and frontline workers, the minister said today.

"In a short time, India has done well by developing vaccines...In the next few days, in the near future, we should be able to give these vaccines to our countrymen. It will be given to our healthcare professional followed by frontline workers," he was quoted today by news agency ANI as saying.

Last week, Serum Institute had said that 50 million doses of Covishield were ready for rollout; Bharat Biotech said it had 20 million Covaxin doses ready.