By plane, truck, van and bikes: How India is transporting covid vaccines to faraway villages
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a painting of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day before the inauguration of the COVID-19 vaccination drive on a street in Mumbai.
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. Updated: 25 Jan 2021, 11:09 AM IST Reuters
India has distributed 16.5 million doses of the two approved vaccines to its states and territories, which dispersed them using an army of drivers
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Reena Jani rose early, finished her chores in the crisp January cold and walked uphill to the road skirting her remote tribal hamlet of Pendajam in eastern India.
A beneficiary gets administered with the Covid vaccine. (BCCL photo)
KORAPUT: Reena Jani rose early, finished her chores in the crisp January cold and walked uphill to the road skirting her remote tribal hamlet of Pendajam in eastern India.
Riding pillion on a neighbour s motorcycle for 40 minutes through hillsides dotted with paddy fields, the 34-year-old health worker headed for the Mathalput Community Health Centre.
Jani s name was on a list of 100 health workers at the centre, making her one of the first Indians to be inoculated against Covid-19 earlier this month, as the country rolls out a vaccination programme the government calls the world s biggest.
Negotiating cows, debris, thick fog and hairpin bends, and fighting fatigue, Porija drove nearly 24 hours within three days to collect and deliver shots to the town of Koraput.
In a survey conducted by New Delhi-based online platform LocalCircles, 62% of 17,000 respondents were hesitant to get vaccinated immediately, mainly due to worries over possible adverse reactions
In the first phase, which got underway earlier this month, the target is 10 million healthcare workers, including Jani. Next are 20 million essential services workers, followed by 270 million people deemed susceptible to the coronavirus