With the Covaxin and Covishield vaccines getting clearance from the Drug Controller General of India, the whole nation is getting ready for the first phase of the mass vaccination programme.
The Odisha government has always stayed a step ahead in its preparations relating to Covid-19 pandemic. After taking care of lakhs of Covid-19 patients through an effective treatment strategy that was able to minimise casualties and boost recovery rate, the government is now putting in place the necessary processes to initiate statewide vaccination effectively.
Just a few days after the nationwide dry runs for the vaccination campaign were concluded, the Naveen Patnaik government declared that the state-level preparation for the vaccination programme is complete and Odisha is ready to put the plans for vaccination into action across health centres and vaccination points in the state.
Earlier, the government had asked district administrators and municipal corporation heads to finish the task of identifying session sites suitable for carrying out the vaccination of state health care workers by today (January 8).
As the vaccination programme will run as a decentralised campaign, with district health care centres and urban health care centres playing a crucial role as venues for vaccination, Additional Chief Secretary of Health and Family Welfare PK Mohapatra had written to the district collectors and the municipal corporation heads to ensure that the selected session sites are equipped with adequate waiting room area and enough space to set up separate vaccination rooms and observation rooms so the vaccination programme can be implemented smoothly.
Odisha has a population of 4.7 crores and it will be difficult to vaccinate everyone if the immunisation campaign is not carried out properly at the district and urban administration level.
According to the directive issued by the government, one session site had to be identified at the CHC headquarter while the other could be at a PHC with an ILR facility.
Session sites were supposed to be identified at the SDH, the DHH, and also at state medical colleges and big private hospitals. The assessment of these proposed session sites was to be submitted by the district level and the urban body task force members to the district collectors and the municipal commissioners.
Health and Family Welfare director Bijay Panigrahi confirmed that the selection of 29,000 session sites for the vaccination programme has been done by the district administrations and the urban bodies. Some 3.27 lakh health workers have been registered in the prepared database for vaccination who will receive the Covid-19 vaccine in the first phase.
In the state capital, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has identified nearly 18 major hospitals and 26 primary health centres and community health centres where 25,000 to 27,000 health care workers will be vaccinated in the first phase.
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