India, on Saturday, launched the world’s largest COVID-19 vaccination drive. On the first day, 100 beneficiaries will be given the COVID vaccine at each site. The two vaccines that will be used are Covishield and Covaxin. While Covishield has been developed by Oxford and is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, Covaxin has been indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech.

Frontline and healthcare workers will be among the first batch of three crore recipients of the vaccine in the first phase.

Ahead of the launch, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released a guideline for the vaccination drive. The receivers have been asked to rest at least for 30 minutes after getting vaccinated at the center. To facilitate the process, all the centers have been marked for waiting, vaccination and observation areas.

The beneficiaries will be monitored after they receive the dose.

Under the ‘Precaution and COntraindications for COVID-19 vaccinations’, the ministry has mentioned that the vaccine is only for the age 18 or above. It also mentioned that interchangeability of the vaccines is not permitted.

The guidelines also mentioned that pregnant and lactating women should not receive the vaccine.

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Covishield can lead to tenderness and pain at the site with the vaccine, headache, fatigue, myalgia, malaise, pyrexia, chills and arthralgia, nausea.

In the case of an AEFI (adverse event following immunisation), the vaccinations and officials have been trained to control the situation. A guideline, too, have been given to them.

For Covaxin, its vaccine may lead to pain on the site, headache, fatigue, fever, body ache, abdominal pain, nausea and vomitting, dizziness-giddiness, tremor, sweating, cold, cough and injection site swelling.