COVID-19 vaccination in India: India’s vaccination drive is going strong, with more than 106 crore doses having been administered across the country. However, India still has a long way to go before the entire adult population of the country has been vaccinated. Amid this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on his visit to Italy and to the UK, and is expected to leave for India on November 2. He is visiting the countries for meetings with his counterparts in Italy and the UK, heads of European Council and European Commission, as well as the G20 summit and the COP26 meet. Now, the Prime Minister’s Office has told news agency ANI that immediately after returning to India, PM Modi would be holding a review meeting with districts having low vaccination coverage.
The PMO said that the review meeting would be held on November 3 at 12 noon and it would be conducted via the video conferencing mode. Giving details of the meeting, the PMO said that it would contain authorities from districts where less than 50% coverage has been done in terms of first dose, and where coverage is low for the second dose. District Magistrates from more than 40 districts would be included in the meeting, and these would span states like Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, and Nagaland, among others.
Apart from this, the chief ministers of these states would also be in attendance during the meeting.
PM Modi speaks on COVID-19 vaccine at G20 Summit
At the G20 Summit held in Italy’s Rome on Saturday, PM Modi said that India is prepared to produce more than five billion vaccine doses for coronavirus next year. This, he said, would help the world fight against the pandemic. He also asserted that it was important that the World Health Organisation gave required approval to Indian vaccines as soon as possible.
He also used the occasion to speak about the need to facilitate international travel and how a mechanism for mutually recognising vaccine certifications could help in achieving this goal.
