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First, around 30 million people will be vaccinated, including healthcare workers
Photo: Mahesh Kumar A / dpa
India has started its corona vaccination campaign.
Around 300 million people in this huge country are to be vaccinated by the summer, and around 300,000 Indians will receive the vaccine on the first day alone.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it was the largest vaccination campaign in the world.
"No country has ever carried out a vaccination campaign of this magnitude in history," Modi said in a televised address.
An employee of a state hospital in New Delhi was the first to be vaccinated on Saturday.
According to the authorities, 30 million people are now to be vaccinated initially, namely employees from the health sector as well as members of the police, the military, prison staff and officials from authorities who are involved in the containment of the corona.
By July, another 270 million people over the age of 50 and risk groups should have their turn.
This means that almost a quarter of India's 1.3 billion inhabitants would be vaccinated in the summer.
So far, more than 10.5 million corona infections have been recorded in India.
Only in the USA have there been more cases so far.
For comparison: 330 million people live in the USA, almost 24 million people have contracted the virus there so far.
Around ten million Americans have already received at least one vaccination, according to the New York Times.
Violent dispute over domestic vaccine
Two vaccines have been approved in India so far: Covishield from the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which is manufactured by the Serum Institute in India, and Covaxin from the Indian company Bharat Biotech.
There is, however, a fierce dispute about the domestic vaccine because it received emergency approval before the end of the clinical tests.
In view of ailing infrastructure and widespread skepticism among the population, the vaccination campaign is a huge challenge.
However, like many other poorer countries, the large country with a weak health system is facing major challenges, such as maintaining cold chains.
However, India can draw on experience from immunization programs against polio and tuberculosis as well as the elaborate organization of elections lasting several weeks.
According to its own information, the country has so far trained more than 600,000 people for the vaccination campaign and played through the vaccine distribution in practice sessions.
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lmd / dpa / AFP