India prepares for COVID-19 vaccination drive

NEW DELHI: As India is gearing up for vaccination drive, the government of India has announced that it will deploy its vast election machinery to deliver 60 crore doses of Covid vaccines to 30 crore Indians. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) issued a draft of standard operating procedures (SOP) to all the states and union territories and stated that at least 100 people should get vaccinated each day at every site. If sufficient resources are available, then each site can vaccinate upto 200 people per day. People will be monitored at the site for 30 minutes after administering the shots. The SOP mentioned that a vaccination site ought to have three rooms or areas including waiting room, vaccination room and observation room.

Dr VK Paul, Niti Aayog member and head of National Expert Group on Covid-19 vaccination, said that the central government has lined up cold storage facilities with temperatures between 2 to 8 degrees Celsius and that the capacity of the syringes and needles have also been built up to the store. According to the plan developed by MoHFW, the coronavirus vaccine will be first given to health care workers, frontline workers, and people above 50 years.
After this, vaccines are to be given to those who are below 50 years of age and are suffering from a chronic critical illness. And then the rest of the population will be given COVID-19 vaccine, whenever it will be ready for public use, keeping in view the spread and availability of the disease.
The government is planning on identifying those above 50 years of age based on the voter list prepared in the Lok Sabha elections and assembly elections. The SOP by MoHFW also mentioned that the beneficiaries of the vaccine will be tracked through a digital platform called Co-WIN (Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network). All information on this platform will be updated in real time. The central government has asked the states to maintain 360-degree comprehensive communication and social mobilization strategy to address the challenges surrounding the vaccine rollout, its progress and benefits.
As per the centre’s guidelines, healthcare personnels; state and district programme managers; medical officers; vaccinator officers; information, education and communication officers; cold chain handlers; supervisors; data managers; ASHA workers; and Mahila Arogya Samitis will be involved in the vaccination drive after going through training programmes set for them.
Dr Suneela Garg, public health advisor to Indian Council of Medical Research, revealed that various categories of staff will be deployed at the vaccination site, including MBBS, BDS, AYUSH doctors, pharmacists, nurses, auxiliary midwife and medical interns. According to the guidelines, four different vaccination officers will be responsible to handle checking registration status of beneficiaries, verifing documents, crowd management, monitoring of adverse events, and guiding non-registered beneficiaries at each site. She added, “We have to see that there is no myth and misconception. Therefore, medical officers and nurses will be giving the vaccine, rest of them will be doing other activities.”
The monumental task of training healthcare workers for the drive has started in the national capital as around 3500 health workers have been identified for the process. According to the government of New Delhi, 1.8 lakh to 2.25 lakh health care workers will be vaccinated in the first phase of the drive, for which 609 cold chain points have been identified in all the top hospitals and Mohalla clinics. Apart from the health department, Delhi government is coordinating with other ministeries, municipal corporations, panchayati raj, urban minister body and other departments for the vaccination programme. The priority during vaccination drive in Delhi will be given to around 1,80,000 healthcare workers.