When will Covid-19 vaccine be available in open market? AIIMS Director answers

Dr Guleria made the comments after receiving the second dose of Covid-19 jab. On January 16, the AIIMS chief was administered the first vaccine shot against the novel coronavirus during the first phase of the vaccination drive.

The vaccine against the coronavirus disease will be available in the open market only after the prime targets including frontline workers, healthcare workers, senior citizens, people who are at high-risk because of pre-existing medical conditions are covered and there is an equivalence of supply-demand, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), informed on Wednesday. "Hopefully, there would be such a situation by year-end or before that. Then there would be a likelihood of the vaccine to come to the open market" the AIIMS director told news agency ANI.

As of February 17, till 8 am, nearly 90 lakh healthcare and frontline workers have been administered the vaccine, according to Union health ministry. (PTI)

Dr Guleria made the comments after receiving the second dose of Covid-19 jab. On January 16, the AIIMS chief was administered the first vaccine shot against the novel coronavirus during the first phase of the vaccination drive.

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As of February 17, till 8 am, nearly 90 lakh healthcare and frontline workers have been administered the vaccine, according to Union health ministry. As many as 89,99,230 vaccine doses have been given to beneficiaries through 1,91,373 sessions, as per the ministry. These include 61,50,922 health care workers (first dose), 2,76,377 health care workers (second dose) and 25,71,931 frontline workers (first dose).

Meanwhile, the country's Covid-19 caseload reached 10,937,320 on Wednesday after 11,610 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, according to Union health ministry. While the number of people succumbing to the disease in the span of the last 24 hours was at 100. The death toll ha snow reached to 1,55,913.

The number of active cases is currently at 1,36,549. The number consists of just 1.25 per cent of the country's total positive cases. While all states and union territories have reported a dip in the daily cases of infection, eighteen states including Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir (UT), Jharkhand, Puducherry, Himachal Pradesh, Lakshadweep, Manipur, Ladakh (UT), Assam, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh did not register any death in the last 24 hours.