• The first COVID-19 vaccine shots in India were given on January 16 to nearly two lakh frontline health care and sanitary workers as Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the world’s largest inoculation drive against the pandemic.

• India has the second highest recorded cases of COVID-19 after the US.

• A total of 1,91,181 beneficiaries were inoculated with COVID-19 vaccine at 3,352 session sites across the country on the first day.

The world’s largest vaccination programme

Two types of COVID-19 vaccines have been supplied for the vaccination drive:

1) Covishield (from the Oxford/AstraZeneca stable manufactured by the Serum Institute) has been supplied to all states/UTs.

2) Covaxin (indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech) has been supplied to 12 States.

• PM Modi highlighted that never before in history, has this type of a large-scale vaccination campaign been undertaken.

• There are more than 100 countries in the world whose population is less than three crore and India is vaccinating three crore people in its first phase of vaccination, he said.

• In the second phase, the number of those vaccinated has to be taken to 30 crore, Modi said, pointing out that only two countries other than India have a population in excess of 30 crore — the US and China.

• The government has already bought 1.1 crore doses of Covishield and 55 lakh doses of Covaxin.

• Health ministry officials said that there will be a gap of 28 days between two doses of COVID-19 vaccines and its effectiveness can be seen only after 14 days.

• According to the government, the shots will be offered first to an estimated one crore health care workers, and around two crore frontline workers, and then to persons above 50 years of age, followed by persons younger than 50 years of age with associated comorbidities.

• The cost of vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers will be borne by the central government.

Covishield

• Covishield is a Recombinant Chimpanzee Adenovirus vector vaccine, encoding the SARS-CoV-2 Spike(S) glycoprotein with technology transfer from AstraZeneca/Oxford University. 

• Serum Institute of India submitted safety, immunogenicity and efficacy data generated on 23,745 participants aged 18 years or older from overseas clinical studies. 

• Serum Institute of India was granted permission to conduct Phase-2/3 clinical trials on 1,600 participants within the country. The company also submitted the interim safety and immunogenicity data generated from this trial and the data was found comparable with the data from the overseas clinical studies.

• Pune-based Serum Institute of India is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold globally (more than 1.5 billion doses).

Covaxin

• Covaxin has been indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

• Bharat Biotech has developed a Whole Virion Inactivated SARS-CoV-2  Vaccine in collaboration with ICMR and National Institute of Virology, Pune, from where they received the virus seed strains. 

• This vaccine is developed on the Vero cell platform, which has a well established track record of safety and efficacy in the country and globally.

• The Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials were conducted on approximately 800 subjects and the results have demonstrated that the vaccine is safe and provides a robust immune response. 

• The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) has reviewed the data on safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine and recommended for grant of permission for restricted use in emergency situations in public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, to have more options for vaccinations, especially in case of infection by mutant strains. The clinical trial ongoing within the country by the firm will continue.

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