India to begin first round of massive Covid vaccination programme
India will on Saturday begin one of the world's largest vaccination programmes, aimed at protecting more than 1.3 billion people from Covid-19.
Millions of doses of two approved vaccines - Covishield and Covaxin - have been shipped across the country. They will go first to health workers and frontline workers, then to other at-risk groups. India has recorded the second-highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world after the United States. An estimated 10 million health workers will be vaccinated in the first round, followed by policemen, soldiers, municipal and other front-line workers. Next in line will be people aged over 50 and anyone under 50 with serious underlying health conditions. India's electoral rolls, which contain details of some 900 million voters, will be used to identify eligible recipients. The government plans to vaccinate 300 million people by early August. This will happen in state-run health care centres, schools, colleges, community halls, municipal offices and wedding halls.