Two women doctors among 20 Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) medical officers, deployed in forward areas in Leh, were among the first to get a vaccine shot against COVID-19 on the first day of the nationwide vaccination drive.
"On the launch day of the coronavirus vaccination in India, the ITBP once again got the opportunity to be a part of the fight against the pandemic as it had served earlier in each occasion such as developing the first quarantine facility in Chhawla, preparing face masks, and PPE kits and running the world's biggest Covid care centre and hospital in New Delhi," ITBP said.
Dr Katyay Sharma Chief Medical Officer, who was administered the vaccine, said that she is completely fine and there is no side effect.
"I am feeling completely fine. There is no side effect of it, it is completely safe. I would like to thank our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Because of his initiative, we health care workers are getting vaccinated," Sharma told .
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India's vaccination drive against the novel coronavirus via video conferencing.
Billed as the world's largest vaccination program, covering the entire length and breadth of the country, the drive aims to first inoculate millions of its healthcare and frontline workers and reach an estimated 3 crore people by the end of its first phase.
A total of 3006 session sites across all states and union territories will be virtually connected during the launch. Around 100 beneficiaries will be vaccinated at each session site on the inaugural day, the union health ministry had said.
In the first phase government and private sector health care workers, including Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) workers, will receive the vaccine.
The drugs regulatory body of India has currently approved two vaccines. Pune-based Serum Institute of India has developed the Covishield vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University while the Covaxin has been developed by Hyderabad's Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Medical Council of research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology.
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor