India's COVID-19 vaccination drive | 1.91 lakh inoculated on Day 1; no beneficiary hospitalised so far: Health Ministry

More than 1.91 lakh healthcare and frontline workers were inoculated across 3,352 sessions on the first day of India’s COVID-19 vaccination drive. The 1,91,181 vaccine beneficiaries received their first jab on January 16, the Health Ministry said citing provisional data.

A total of 16,755 persons were involved in organising the immunisation drive at the session sites.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched one of the world’s largest, most ambitious vaccination drives against the novel coronavirus pandemic via video conferencing at 10:30 am and sanitation workers were among the first to receive the first vaccine shot in most states.

In a media briefing held on January 16, the Centre informed that India has not reported any case of post-vaccination hospitalisation from adverse effect of vaccine yet. The COVID-19 vaccination drive went smooth by far except reports of delay in uploading beneficiary data at certain sites and reports of some healthcare workers getting vaccinated despite not being scheduled for the first vaccination session.

Healthcare and frontline workers, who are the first in line to be vaccinated in the country, are being administered either Serum Institute’s Covishield or Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin – the two coronavirus vaccines approved for emergency use by the Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI).