India, with nearly 1.4 billion population, is set to give shots to 300 million people in the first six to eight months of the year.
The recipients first to get the vaccine include 30 million health and other frontline workers and then followed by about 270 million people either older than 50 or vulnerable patients being at high risk.
Indian health authorities have not specified what percentage of the world’s most populous country after China will be targeted by the campaign, but it is believed to be one of the largest immunization programs.
India has given a green light for emergency use of two vaccines; COVISHIELD developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based AstraZeneca, and another is COVAXIN which is developed by government-backed Bharat Biotech.
The South-Asian country with 10.5 million confirmed cases is the second country with the highest infection toll after the United States while the total deaths has ranked the country third behind the U.S. and Brazil.
According to a tally by Reuters, totally, 10,527,683 have been infected by the novel coronavirus in India while the toll of deaths has hit 151,918.
(Source: News Agencies)
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