GUWAHATI: The
Assam government has completed updating about 99% of the database of government healthcare workers of the state for immunization under Covid-19 vaccine drive.
The state government is procuring data of healthcare staff of private hospitals and anganwadi workers, so that the first shots of Covid-19 vaccine can be administered to frontline health workers immediately after the vaccine arrives in the state.
As PM Narendra Modi told an all-party meeting last week that going by expert opinion, India will not have to wait for a vaccine against Covid-19 for long and the first shots could be available in a matter of weeks, the state-level steering committee, headed by chief secretary Jishnu Barua, reviewed the preparedness for Covid-19 vaccination on Tuesday.
“The (steering) committee has been formed as determined by the Centre. We are waiting for detailed guidelines from the Centre, but the meeting was held to take stock of the availability of personnel, cold chain facilities, etc. The database of health workers has been prepared,” Barua told TOI on Tuesday.
Even as the state government is yet to be intimated by the Centre on when they are going to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, health experts fear that a second wave of infections like the one in Europe, may be even more dangerous if the vaccine does not arrive by January-end.
“If the health workers can be vaccinated at the earliest, the fresh threat of Covid-19 will reduce by about 50%,” said a senior health department official.
As Europe was devastated before the pandemic took a deadly turn in India, health experts are doing the predictions based on incidences. “The logic behind predicting the possibility of a second wave even in northeastern states such as Assam is simple. We have to go by the incidences in the western countries, as no one can confirm what turn the virus would take,” the official added.
During the meeting on Tuesday, the Covid-19 situation in Assam was reviewed and the readiness of some of the government departments to execute the vaccination drive was assessed, a government source said.