Chandrashekar, a group ‘D’ employee from Bengaluru’s K.C. General Hospital became the first person in the city to receive the much awaited coronavirus vaccine. Mallasandra PHC doctor Komal was the second person to be administered the dose.
Both of them were thereafter kept under doctors’ strict observation for around 30 minutes as per Ministry of Health, Government of India’s standard operating procedures.
Karnataka government plans to vaccinate nearly 16 lakh people, including health workers and frontline staff who have been actively involved in the fight against coronavirus. Sources revealed that around 1.71 lakh health workers have been identified to receive the vaccine in the first phase.
Speaking to media, health officials said that the Covishield vaccine, developed by Oxford University in collaboration with AstraZeneca, will be delivered to the vaccination centres. Pune-based Serum Institute of India is producing this vaccine in India. The state government has cautioned people who receive the vaccine to remain in regular touch with the hospitals from where they took the vaccine.
Karnataka health minister, K. Sudhakar said that the vaccine will be administered in two doses. He added, "After the first dose, the second dose will be administered after a gap of 28 days. Immunity will develop after 45 days thereafter. One has to be careful until 45 days."
The state has identified 237 centres to administer Covishield vaccine and six centres to administer Covaxin, which is India’s first indigenous vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) – National Institute of Virology (NIV).
Karnataka has received Covishield from Serum Institute of India and Covaxin from Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech. Karnataka plans to vaccinate over seven lakh healthcare workers throughout the state of which more than 24,000 will be vaccinated on the first day and the rest will be given the first shot in the coming days.
All these health workers have been registered on the Co-Win online platform to receive the vaccine shot.
Source: IANS
