Vaccine recipients won't be able to choose between Covaxin & Covishield? Congress hits out

Health Ministry hinted on Tuesday that for w, COVID-19 vaccine recipients will t have option to choose from two vaccines recently approved for restricted emergency use in India. Reacting to this, Senior Congress leer Manish Tewari on Wednesday questioning government said that by t allowing recipient to pick a vaccine of his choice, "is NDA/BJP making Guinea pigs out fo Indians?"

Taking to Twitter, he said, "Till yesterday NDA/BJP claimed Covaxin has been cleared for emergency use. Is roll out REAL Phase-3 trial of Covaxin?"

Replying to a question at a press conference in New Delhi, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, "At many places in world, more than one vaccine is being ministered, but presently, in country, vaccine recipients have option of choosing shots."

India has recently approved two vaccines for viral disease for restricted emergency use -- Oxford University's Covishield and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. Bhushan said re will be a gap of 28 days between two doses of COVID-19 vaccine and its effectiveness can be seen only after 14 days.

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Covishield, Covaxin safest of COVID-19 vaccines: VK Paul

"So we urge people to keep following COVID appropriate behaviour," he said. India will launch its COVID-19 vaccination drive from January 16 with priority to be given to nearly three crore healthcare and frontline workers.

Bhushan said 54.72 lakh of entire stock of COVID-19 vaccine doses ordered so far were received by designated national and state-level vaccine stores till Tuesday afteron, with Coronavirus iculation drive set to begin from Saturday. He said all orders -- 1.1 crore doses of Covishield from Serum Institute of India and 55 lakh doses of Covaxin from Bharat Biotech -- will be received by January 14.

Covishield and Covaxin, two COVID-19 vaccines which have received Emergency Use Authorisation (EAU) have been tested on thousands of people and side-effects are negligible, Dr VK Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, said on Tuesday and ted that two "are safest of vaccines". "Both vaccines (Covishield and Covaxin) have been authorized for emergency use and re should be doubt about ir safety. y have been tested on thousands of people and side-effects are negligible. re is risk of any significance," Dr Paul said at a press conference.

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(With ncy inputs)