Chennai: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday said the COVID vaccination programme would be rolled out across the country very soon.
Talking to reporters after inspecting Tamil Nadu’s preparedness for administering the vaccine ahead of the roll out at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital here, he said medical professionals have shown exemplary courage in tackling covid in the country.
“Earlier, we had only few labs. Now we have 2,300 labs for testing covid. We are now exporting ventilators, PPE kits and N-95 masks”, he added.
Stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken proactive steps in tackling the corona, Dr Harsh Vardhan said frontline workers, sanitary workers, medical practitioners and defence personnel will get priority in the first phase of vaccination.
Later, people above 50 years with co-morbidities will be vaccinated, he added.
“We are happy that we have developed the vaccine in such a short period. we have now given emergency use license.”, he said.
“Very shortly we will begin the vaccination programme across the country”, he said, adding, like how we eradicated polio, corona too would be eradicated.
He lauded the Tamil Nadu government for tackling the covid and said the state handled the challenging situation by conducting 100 per cent RT-PCR tests and brought the virus spread under control.
“State Government’s very good planning and management has brought the pandemic under control”, he added. (UNI)