Around 3 lakh healthcare workers will be inoculated at 2,934 sites across the country on the first day of the massive nationwide Covid-19

New Delhi: Around 3 lakh healthcare workers will be inoculated at 2,934 sites across the country on the first day of the massive nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive which is set to begin from January 16, official sources said.

Each vaccination session will cater to a maximum of 100 beneficiaries and the Union Health Ministry has advised states not to organise "unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day".

Covid-19 vaccine

"States have been advised to organise vaccination sessions taking into account 10 per cent reserve/wastage doses and an average of 100 vaccinations per session each day.

"Therefore, any undue haste on the part of states to organise unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day is not advised," the ministry said on Wednesday.

It also said that states and UTs have also been advised to increase the number of vaccination session sites that would be operational every day in a progressive manner as the vaccination process stabilises and moves forward.

"Around 3 lakh frontline healthcare workers will be inoculated at 2,934 sites across the country on the first day of January 16," a source said.

Covid-19 vaccine

The government on Tuesday hinted that vaccine recipients for now will not have the option to choose from the two vaccines -- Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, Covishield, manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) and indigenously developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech -- that have been approved for restricted emergency use in India.

According to the government, the shots will be offered first to an estimated one crore healthcare workers, and around two crore frontline workers, and then to persons above 50 years of age, followed by persons younger than 50 years of age with associated comorbidities.

The cost of vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers will be borne by the central government, officials had said.