NEW DELHI: Addressing an all-party meeting on the delivery and distribution of COVID vaccines, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the State governments' advices will be sought on the matter as to who all will get the inoculation first, and also urged the political leaders to write in their suggestions.
"Experts believe that the vaccines will be ready in a few weeks, and Indian scientists are very confident of developing them," said Modi.
The all-party meeting was called for suggestions and feedback on the progress made so far. It was attended by representatives of all the political parties in the Parliament.
"The vaccine distribution and administration is given to a national experts group. Advice will be taken from them on a comprehensive and real-time manner. India has the facilities needed to manufacture the vaccine at a large scale. In fact, our preparation is better than most others," PM Narendra Modi said at the meeting, which is the second such meet called by the government since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Three vaccines from India are also at different stages of trial, he said.
"Centre is in talks with State governments over the price of vaccine and decision regarding it will be taken keeping public health as topmost priority," he added.
Frontline Healthcare workers, who include police personnel and municipal staff, and old people suffering from serious conditions would be inoculated on priority, he said.
From the time of fear and apprehensions in the months of February and March, when India reported its first COVID cases, to this atmosphere of "hope and confidence" in December, India has come a long way, he said.
"India is one of the few countries where the testing and recovery rates are very high and the mortality rate is very low. Compared to developed countries, India has fought against COVID much better and has managed to save a lot of lives," PM Modi said.
PM Modi also urged political parties to keep the masses aware and protect them from rumours which, he added, are often spread whenever there is a mass vaccination exercise. "We must make sure rumours are not spread during vaccination, rumours that are anti-national and anti-human," he said.
About 12 leaders from prominent political parties, including Leader of Opposition in RajyaSabhaGhulamNabi Azad (who is representing the Congress), Sudip Bandyopadhyay (Trinamool Congress) and Sharad Pawar of the NCP attended the virtual meeting. Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary also attended the meeting which started around 10:30 am.
Apart from PM Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan were present in the meeting. Parliamentary Affairs Ministers Pralhad Joshi and Ministers of State in the same Ministry Arjun Ram Meghwal and V Muraleedharan, who reached out to floor leaders for the meeting, also attended the virtual meet.
PM Modi has held four important meetings on Vaccine Delivery and Distribution related preparedness in the last two weeks. Last Saturday, the Prime Minister also nteracted with a team of developers and also visited three cities to conduct an extensive review of the vaccine development and manufacturing process. He visited the Zydus Biotech Park in Ahmedabad, the Bharat Biotech in Hyderabad and the Serum Institute of India in Pune.
With 36,595 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, India's overall tally increased to 95,71,559 on Friday, as 540 more fatalities took the COVID-19 toll to 1,39,188. The recovery rate stands at 94.2 per cent and fatality at 1.45 as per cent.
Currently, there are 4,16,082 active cases, whereas 90,16,289 patients have been discharged so far, including 42,916 discharged in the past 24 hours. India witnessed a 3% rise in fresh cases and 2.7 rise in deaths since Thursday, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The samples tested up to December 3 is 14,47,27,749 including 11,70,102 tested on Thursday, said the Indian Council of Medical Research. (IANS & Agencies)
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