Healthcare workers get first jabs as India's vaccination drive begins

Healthcare workers at the frontline of Indiarsquos COVID19 battle got their first jabs on Saturday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching the worldrsquos largest vaccination drive against the pandemic showing the light at the end of a 10month tunnel that upended millions of lives and livelihoodsPrime Minister Narendra ModiMore than one crore cases and 15 lakh fatalities later India took its first steps out of the pandemic with shots of the Covishield and Covaxin vaccines being administered at medical centres across the country to a collective sigh of relief that this could finally be the beginning of the end of the COVID19 traumaAlong with healthcare workers others such as AIIMS director Randeep Guleria NITI Aayog member VK Paul who is also head of an empowered group on medical equipment and management plan to tackle the outbreak took the vaccine shotsAddressing the nation ahead of the launch the PM reminded people that two doses of the vaccine are very important and asked them to continue with masks and social distancing even after receiving the jabsModi spoke of the disruption the pandemic had caused to peoplersquos lives isolating victims of the Coronavirus and denying the dead traditional last rites The PM also referred to sacrifices made by healthcare and frontline workers hundreds of whom lost their lives to the viral infection ldquoOur vaccination programme is driven by humanitarian concerns those exposed to maximum risk will get priorityrdquo the PM saidMP gets a vaccineBJP Lok Sabha MP from Gautam Buddha Nagar and former Union minister Mahesh Sharma on Saturday became the first public representative to get the COVID19 vaccine shot as a medical practitioner at Kailash HospitalSharma is also the owner of the Kailash group of hospitals ldquoI am not getting the vaccine as an MP or public representative but as a doctor I am in this profession for the last 35 years and we should hail the work of our scientists who prepared the two vaccinesrdquo Sharma saidlsquoI will also get vaccinatedrsquoTamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami on Saturday said he too will get a vaccine shot against the CoronavirusLaunching the COVID19 vaccination drive in the state at Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai Palaniswami told reporters that he too will get vaccinated against Coronavirus and added that the state had received 556500 doses of vaccinesmdash536500 doses of Covishield and 20000 doses of CovaxinPalaniswami said 28 days after the first shot a second vaccine dose will be administered and one has to be very careful for the next 42 days after which immunity against coronavirus will developWhen pointed out some states not using Covaxin Palaniswami said the permission to the vaccine was given by the central government after detailed studiesPalaniswami said people may have some initial apprehension about the vaccine but when the doctors themselves come forward to take the shot peoplersquos views would undergo a change20 ITBP personnel get jabsAt least 20 healthcare personnel of the IndoTibetan Border Police ITBP posted in Ladakh were among the first recipients of the vaccine on SaturdayThis includes two women officers chief medical officer Katyayni Sharma Pande and medical officer Dr Skalzang Angmo force spokesperson Vivek Kumar Pandey said in DelhiThe border guarding force has a large presence in the Ladakh region by virtue of its deployment to guard the Line of Actual Control LAC with ChinaFirst time luckyThe first person in the country to get the vaccine shot was sanitation worker Manish Kumar He was vaccinated at AIIMS in New Delhi in the presence of Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan After an hour of taking the jab Kumar spoke to the media and said that he did not feel any side effects or pain and is feeling perfectly energetic to perform his daily choresAll you need to know about Indiarsquos two COVID19 vaccinesgtgt Covaxin and Covishield are selected by the Drugs Controller General of India DCG I So far the government has procured 11 crore Covishield and 55 lakh Covaxin vaccines at a cost of Rs 200 and Rs 206 per dose respectivelygtgt Covaxin developed by Hyderabadbased Bharat Biotech is the countryrsquos first indigenous vaccine against the virusgtgt Covaxin uses an inactivated form of the Coronavirus It destroys the ability of the virus to multiply in the human body and increases immunity system to fight the virusgtgt On the other hand the Oxford University and AstraZeneca have developed Covishieldgtgt Covishield is made by taking a common cold virus called an adenovirus from chimpanzees and deleting about 20 per cent of the virusrsquos instructions It also follows the genetic instructions programmed into it by its developers to successfully provoke a strong immune response