India is setting up the world’s biggest vaccination drive, which will inoculate 300 million people on Saturday.
Indian airlines have begun shipping the first doses of vaccines to Delhi and other major cities, including Ahmedabad, Kolkata, and Bengaluru, according to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri's tweet earlier this week.
India will prioritize health-care and other frontline workers, who will be followed by persons above 50 years of age and other younger, high-risk groups.
The world’s biggest vaccination drive is a close collaboration between the central government and states.
India will run a digital portal called Co-WIN Vaccine Delivery Management System to deliver real-time information on “vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualized tracking of beneficiaries,” according to the health ministry.
“India’s expertise in vaccine manufacturing and experience with mass immunization campaigns has prepared it well for ‘phase 1’ vaccinations set to begin this weekend,” Akhil Bery, South Asia analyst at Eurasia Group, wrote in a report this week.
“India has a long history of immunization campaigns, including its Universal Immunization Program that inoculates 55 million a year, and will rely on this expertise to distribute coronavirus vaccines,” he said.
India’s drug regulator has approved the emergency use of two Covid-19 vaccines, both of which are being shipped to different inoculation centers ahead of Saturday.
One of the vaccines, called Covishield, is produced by British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca and Oxford University, which is being manufactured locally by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
"It's a great day for India and the world, because this is going to be the most affordable vaccine, that will be equitably distributed as much as possible across the globe," the institute's CEO Adar Poonawalla told CNN.
The other vaccine is called Covaxin, developed locally by India’s Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research. It received emergency use authorization as clinical trials continue.
The two vaccines must be refrigerated at all times. There is a total of 29,000 cold-chain points, 240 walk-in coolers, 70 walk-in freezers, 45,000 ice-lined refrigerators, 41,000 deep freezers, and 300 solar refrigerators set for the world's biggest vaccination drive.
According to India’s health secretary, the Indian government has secured a procurement deal for 11 million doses of Covishield at 200 Indian rupees ($2.74) per dose and 5.5 million doses of Covaxin at an average cost of 206 rupees per shot.
Eurasia Group’s Bery explained that despite the government’s hopeful outlook, two important risks could possibly slow the implementation of the vaccination campaign.
“First, vaccine production capacity will be limited even in best-case scenarios,” he said, adding that if the local vaccine-makers cannot produce the 600 million doses required to inoculate the initial 300 million people, then “India’s immunization timeline — and its export of vaccines to other countries — could be significantly delayed.”
Moreover, India’s vaccine campaign will depend heavily on state governments “whose capacities and expertise vary widely,” Bery said. “Effective coordination will be needed between the central and state governments, something that has not been (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi’s strong point.”
India trained 150,000 staff in 700 districts and has held several national dry runs involving mock transportation of vaccines and dummy injections.
