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HomeNewsBusinessReliance Industries launches India’s largest private COVID vaccination drive; to give free jabs to over 1.3 million employees, their families

Reliance Industries launches India’s largest private COVID vaccination drive; to give free jabs to over 1.3 million employees, their families

RIL's vaccination drive is expected to reduce the burden of India's public healthcare institutions.

May 27, 2021 / 13:55 IST
Over 3.30 lakh employees and family members have already got their first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine and the company is targeting vaccination of all eligible parties – at least with the first shot – by June 15. (Representative Image: AP)
     
     
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    Reliance Industries (RIL) has chalked out a detailed plan to vaccinate more than 1.3 million of its employees, associates and partners, free of cost, across 880 cities in India, in what will be the largest corporate vaccination drive in the country.

    Beneficiaries of this massive vaccination drive include RIL’s employees, associates’ employees, partner corporations’ employees (e.g. BP, Google, etc.) and even retired employees and their family members, the company said in a statement on May 27.

    The vaccination drive will “substantially reduce the pressure on public health systems and help India counter the pandemic challenges more effectively,” the statement added.

    Follow our LIVE blog on the COVID-19 pandemic here

    Over 3.30 lakh employees and family members have already got their first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine and the company is targeting vaccination of all eligible parties – at least with the first shot – by June 15.

    COVID-19 Vaccine

    Frequently Asked Questions

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    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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    Further, the definition of family has been expanded to include spouse, children, parents, siblings, grandparents and parents-in-law. Employees will also include store-level staff at nearly 13,000 Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio stores.

    Details of the vaccination programme:

    >> All eligible employees and their family members are required to be registered on the Centre’s CoWIN platform.

    >> Once registered on CoWIN slots for vaccination can be booked at the nearest location on Jio Healthclub, RIL’s online healthcare platform.

    >> The programme is being undertaken as part of the government’s workplace vaccination policy and will be delivered at RIL’s Occupational Health Centers (OHC), Reliance Hospitals and partner hospitals (Max, Manipal, Apollo, etc.) in more than 800 cities.

    >> Besides free vaccination, employees and family members who have already gotten their jabs will be eligible for full reimbursement of vaccine expenses.

    >> RIL has purchased Covishield (Serum Institute of India) and Covaxin (Bharat Biotech) for its employees.

    >> Vaccination has already begun at Mumbai and its manufacturing locations and will start in the other major cities and state capitals by next week, followed by cities where RIL and partners employees are based.

    For full coverage on the coronavrius pandemic click here

    Disclosure: Moneycontrol is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.

    Moneycontrol News
    first published: May 27, 2021 01:55 pm

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