Infosys founder,Ex-Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s 102-year-old relative among nearly 2K people who take COVID-19 vaccine

Bengaluru: Tech giant Infosys co-founders N R Narayanamurthy and Kris Gopalakrishnan joined several other senior citizens, including a 97-year old man, in getting vaccinated for COVID-19 as the inoculation drive for sections of the general public kick-started in Karnataka on Monday.

The city-based Infosys founders and Sudha Murty, wife of Narayanamurthy, reached the Narayana Health City here in the evening and took the vaccine shot in the presence of its founder Dr Devi Shetty, a statement from the healthcare facility said.

Earlier, Ramaswami Parthasarathy (97) became the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at the Manipal Hospital here as the drive for vaccinating people aged above 60 and those over 45 with comorbidities got underway in the state.

Former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao’s 102-year-old relative joined the many others who got inoculated on Monday in Bengaluru as the vaccination for the general public kick-started in the country.

Sharing the information, the retired diplomat tweeted, “My daughter-in-law”s 102-year-old grandfather got the first dose of his COVIDVaccination in Bengaluru today.” As many as 1,950 people other than health and frontline workers, got inoculated in the state on Monday.

In all, 1,950 people, including 1,576 senior citizens, took the vaccine during the day, Health department officials said.

Mysuru district took the lead with 285 people taking the shot, followed by 170 in Bengaluru Urban district, 168 in Ballari, 120 in Uttara Kannada, 80 in Belagavi and 74 in Kodagu.

In the category of people above 45 years with comorbidities, maximum of 83 people took the vaccine in Raichur, followed by 75 in Bengaluru, 47 in Ballari, 22 in Kalaburagi, 19 each in Bidar and Chikkaballapura.

According to state Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar, as many as 270 vaccine centres have been set up.

As the drive started, senior citizens sporting face masks queued up in the hospitals for getting the vaccine shot.

Some of the beneficiaries were wheelchair bound.

The health department has appealed to the senior citizens and people above 45 years with comorbidities to register themselves for inoculation.

Meanwhile, the government hospitals too started the preparations for vaccination.

‘Today only we got direction from the government. We are starting the registration process from today and will begin the vaccination drive once the preparations are over,’ Director and Dean of Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, Dr C R Jayanthi told PTI.

The state government has said vaccination will take place at all its taluk and district level hospitals and two identified private hospitals in each district.

According to the state health department, vaccination days will be Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays in government facilities and all working days in private hospitals.

The number of vaccinations would be limited to 200 per day per session site and would be on a first come first serve basis.

However, online registered beneficiaries would be allotted a specific time in a day.