India would raise the number of its COVID-19 vaccination sites by up to five times, a government official said, after administering nearly 9 million shots a month.
India claims it has been the quickest to cross several inoculation milestones, but just about 300,000 front-line employees a day are vaccinated. In order to achieve the government’s goal of covering 300 million of its 1.35 billion population by August, vaccinations would have to rise sharply, experts say.
India has been taught how to scale up the campaign by the ongoing vaccination of frontline staff such as nurses and physicians, Vinod Kumar Paul, who heads a government panel on vaccine policy, told a news conference.
He said, hours after taking the second dose of a government-backed vaccine, he said, ‘This experience will be of great benefit.’ We are running 10,000-11,000 immunisation sessions at the moment. When we start the next step, we will do four to five times that; wait until the pace picks up.
Starting next month, India will begin immunising the public, beginning with those over 50 or with medical conditions.