New Delhi:

The second phase of the coronavirus vaccination drive will begin March 1, with priority given to people aged sixty and above, and those over 45 but with co-morbidities, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said Wednesday afternoon.

The shots will be administered at 10,000 government-run centres (where it will be free of cost) and 20,000 private centres. Charges for vaccination from privately-run centres will be confirmed in a few days, the centre said.

Around 27 crore people are expected to be covered in the second phase of vaccinations.

Dr Suneeta Garg, an advisor to Indian Council For Medical Research (ICMR), told NDTV yesterday that as the national vaccination drive expands to include the population at large, there will be segregation based on several criteria, and that each sub-group will have separate timelines.

“For the general population, we will have to prioritise – we will first go for those aged 60 years and above, and then those aged 50 years and above. Along with that we will also vaccinate those suffering from comorbidities. We will also segregate them on the basis of the duration of non-communicable diseases – those who have chronic diseases will be given priority,” she said.

Ms Garg, who is also on the Lancet Commission’s Covid-19 India Taskforce, said those suffering from comorbidities like “diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases” will also be prioritised above people with other diseases.

She also said that the private sector will play a major in the drive.

“Private sector will have a very major role to play if we have to reach the last mile – that means around 29,000 plus cold chain points. We will be creating roughly double the vaccination points…there would 40-50 percent private sector vaccination points,” she explained.

In the first phase the centre had targeted the vaccination of around three crore healthcare staff and frontline workers. However, as of this morning only around 1.21 crore people have been vaccinated. Of these, fewer than 1.5 million have received the mandatory second shot.

India has so far approved two vaccines for emergency use – Covishield (developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute) and Covaxin (developed and manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech).

A third – Russia’s Sputnik V – has also applied for emergency and this will be considered by a SEC (subject expert committee) today. Sputnik V, which is holding trials on 1,600 people in the country, has an efficacy rate of 91.6 per cent, which is significantly higher than Covishield’s 70 per cent.

Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin’s efficacy has not yet been confirmed.