Prime Minister Narendra Modi got vaccinated against Covid-19 Monday morning at AIIMS, New Delhi.
Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech’s indigenously developed vaccine, Covaxin, was administered to the prime minister.
The second round of vaccination started today, with people above 60 years of age and people above 45 years with some defined comorbidity, are eligible for the vaccination.
About 10000 government centres will be administering the vaccine free of cost to the eligible candidates. The charges at the private centres have been capped at INR 250.
Bharat started its vaccination drive on January 16 and more than 1.3 crore doses have been administered so far. These doses have been administered to the health workers and frontline workers.
The government had cleared two vaccines, Covishield (manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India) and Covaxin (developed and manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech), for emergency use before starting the vaccination on January 16.
The opposition was spreading rumours about vaccines. The Samajwadi Party President and Former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav had said in a press conference that he would not take these ‘BJP vaccines’.
The other leaders also questioned why the prime minister was not taking these vaccines.
The Prime Minister has been requesting people not to jump the queue and wait for the turn to get vaccinated.
There has been global demand for these vaccines, with the country already supplying doses to many countries around the world.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had called the prime minister for doses of these vaccines to inoculate Canadian citizens.
