Now that the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccine is expected to happen soon, the State government has issued orders setting up a State steering committee and a three-tier task force, extending up to block-level, to coordinate the vaccine introduction and guide the strategies for the implementation of a vaccination programme
The government expects that in all likelihood, the COVID-19 vaccine introduction will happen over a period of one year and that as the supplies will be limited initially, socio-demographic groups would have to be prioritised .
The State steering committee and the task force have been set up to ensure a smooth introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine while ensuring minimal disruption to other routine health-care initiatives of the State.
The State steering committee, chaired by the Chief Secretary, with the Principal Secretary (Health) as the convener and the Principal Secretaries of allied departments — LSGD, Urban, Revenue, National Health Mission, Social Justice, Women and Child Development, Information and Public Relations — as members, will meet at least once in a month.
The State Task Force is chaired by the Principal Secretary (Health), with State Mission Director (NHM) as member-secretary, the Director of Health Services, Director of Medical Education and Directors of allied departments with WHO, UNICEF and various professional organisations as development partners, and will meet every fortnight
The task force committees have been set up at district and block-level too.
Preparatory phase
The State steering committee and the State Task Force have been tasked with the job of coordinating the activities in the preparatory phase such as creating a database of health-care workers, State’s cold chain preparedness, communication planning and devising strategies for specific challenges of difficult terrain or hard-to-reach geographical locales that the State may face.
Mobilising human resources with sufficient experience in health/medicine for various vaccine-related activities, financial planning for vaccine introduction, devising plans for utilisation of common service centres and IEC activities in the preparatory phase will be supervised and guided by the steering committee.
The State Task Force will monitor the progress of the creation of the database of vaccine beneficiaries, provide guidance and fix time line for the introduction of the vaccine as and when it is made available. It will also ensure the involvement of other stakeholders and immunisation partners like the UNDP.
It will also map human resources across departments who can be deployed for vaccination. It will also develop a media plan to address rumour mongering and develop IEC materials.
