Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, however said that the final decision regarding the COVID-19 vaccine rollout lies with the government.
The Indian government is all set to introduce the COVID-19 vaccine within 10 days from the date of emergency use authorisation by the drugs regulator. Based on the feedback of the dry-run conducted in all states and Union territories, the health ministry is ready to introduce the vaccine.
On Sunday, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approved Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield and indigenously developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech for restricted emergency use in the country.
Briefing media, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, however, said that the final decision regarding the COVID-19 vaccine rollout lies with the government.
He also said that healthcare and frontline workers need not register themselves for the vaccination drive as their database has been uploaded on the CoWIN vaccine delivery management system in a bulk.
The health ministry also released a slew of features for its CoWIN app, which will provide every detail on the vaccination programme.
One of the authentication methods in CoWIN app would be to use of Aadhaar to prevent malpractice.
SMS in 12 languages will be sent to guide those waiting to get vaccinated and frontline workers who are engaged in inoculation process.
There will be a 24x7 helpline, chatbox with pattern recognition to help navigate the portal.
Manufacturers transport the vaccines to four primary vaccine stores, at Karnal, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. From there, it is transported in bulk to the 37 state vaccine stores for further dissemination.
Department of Biotechnology Secretary Renu Swarup said the vaccines will have to be stored at 2-8 degrees Celsius as the logistics have been worked out while considering temperature as a factor.
The Health Secretary said, only 43.96% of the total active cases of COVID-19 are under treatment in health-care facilities He added that active cases per million in India is 167 and deaths per million is 108.
There is a continuous decline in active cases which are now below 2.5 Lakh. India has reported only 96 new cases and 1 death per million population in the last 7 days.
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 "Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan")
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