COVID-19: Over 20 lakh people get inoculated on first day of India's third phase of vaccination

India on Thursday, April 1, started the third phase of COVID-19 vaccination programme for everyone older than 45 years, irrespective of comorbidities.

On the first day of India’s expanded vaccination drive, more than 2.2 million people signed up for coronavirus vaccines and at least two million were given shots till 9 pm on Thursday.

This comes in the wake of India witnessing a sudden surge in infections in many states and cities, hinting at a second wave of the pandemic.

Before Thursday, the vaccination was restricted to people over the age of 60 and people above 45 with co-morbidities. 

“The government has set a target of immunising everyone over the age of 45 years within the next 40 days. To ensure that happens, we will start creating more and more vaccination centres, train more vaccinators, keep centres open for 12-hours, and motivate people to come and get immunised,” a senior official from Delhi’s health department was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

In a significant step to exponentially expand the countrywide vaccination drive, the Centre has decided to operationalise both public and private sector Covid Vaccination Centres (CVCs) on all days of April, including gazetted holidays.

States like Delhi, Mumbai and Karnataka witnessed long queues of people waiting to get inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

"The vaccination drive gathered momentum in the third phase as citizens above 45 years of age also received their first shot in state-run and private hospitals in cities and towns across Karnataka on Thursday," a health official told IANS. 

The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16 for healthcare workers and vaccination of the frontline workers started from February 2.

The next phase of Covid-19 vaccination commenced from March 1 for those who are over 60 years of age and for people aged 45 and above with specific comorbid conditions.

Meanwhile, India on Friday (April 2) reported 81,441 fresh COVID-19 cases, single highest rise since October 2, 2020 and 468 deaths due to the disease.

(With IANS inputs)