Close to 8 million frontline workers have already registered under the Co-WIN app to get inoculated. (Source: Reuters)

After a dry run on January 2, India will likely roll out its vaccination drive in the coming week, Moneycontrol has learnt.

On January 1, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, National COVID-19 Task Force Chairman Dr Vinod Paul and other senior officials in the government held multiple meetings. “A dry run is scheduled for January 2 across all states and Union territories, and the vaccination drive begins in a week or so,” said an official aware of the deliberations in the meetings.

Meanwhile, Covishield, the vaccine developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca and licenced for India by Serum Institute of India (SII), has been recommended for emergency use approval (EUA) by an expert panel of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization.

Additionally, the authorities have made it clear that the vaccination drive will focus on about 300 million people, a priority group comprising of health workers, essential frontline workers, and those most susceptible to the virus.

Paul, head of the task-force, told CNBC-TV18 that financial resources will not be a constraint. “We are currently looking at a priority group of 300 million people and not the whole population,” Paul said, adding higher risk groups were chosen in order to minimise death toll.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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Meanwhile, close to 8 million frontline workers have already registered under the Co-WIN app to get inoculated.

India's vaccination drive likely to start next week, says official

Authorities have made it clear that the vaccination drive will focus on about 300 million people, a priority group comprising of health workers, essential frontline workers, and those most susceptible to the coronavirus.

Close to 8 million frontline workers have already registered under the Co-WIN app to get inoculated. (Source: Reuters)