Covid-19 vaccination drive: Centre issues guidelines; 100 to 200 people to be immunised in one session

Covid-19 vaccination drive: Government has already issued guidelines for Covid-19 vaccination drive and it advises on inoculation of 100 to 200 people each session per day. After the vaccine dose is administered, the beneficiary will be kept under observation for 30 minutes for any kind of adverse reaction and only one person will be vaccinated at a time in one center, directs the ‘COVID-19 Vaccine Operational Guidelines’.

COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system, a digital platform specially made for the vaccination purpose will be utilized to track enlisted beneficiaries on a real-time basis. There will be no provision for spot-registration. A beneficiary has to register beforehand and they will be vaccinated depending on the prioritisation. Centre has asked the states to designate one manufacturer to a district to avoid mixing of vaccines during transport.

The government guidelines further asked states and vaccine governing authorities to take all measures to avoid the vaccine vials, carriers, ice packs getting exposed to direct sunlight. All vaccine doses should be properly stores in carriers with the lid closed until a beneficiary comes for vaccination.

The vials may not have a label of date of expiry or vaccine vial monitors (VM) but they should restrict vaccinators to administer doses. As a session ends the unused vials in their cold packs should be sent back to the cold chain point for storage, mentioned the guidelines.

The Centre asked the states to develop a 360-degree comprehensive social mobilisation and communication policy for Covid-19 vaccine administration so that all challenges in the way of the country’s biggest vaccination drive can be countered in time.

The Centre laid emphasis on ensuring that 1.3 billion Indian population has access to factually correct and timely updates about vaccine rollout and eliminate the public anxiety and misconceptions around the immunisation. All apprehension regarding the adverse effect (if any) on being administered vaccine dose, government prioritising a certain section of the population for vaccination, safety concern over introducing vaccines after a short trial and rumours in social media space about vaccine’s efficacy should be well addressed.

Each session will vaccinate 100 people but if the site has adequate spaces and logistics arrangement for two waiting room, vaccine administration room and observation room and crowd management facility another vaccinator can be added to create another session of 100 more beneficiaries. Each centre will comprise of at least five members, it said.

Healthcare workers, frontline workers and vulnerable section comprising of people above the age of 50 years will get the vaccine doses in first phase followed by people belonging to the age group below 50 years. The above 50 groups can be further divided to those above 50 and those between 50 and 60 years of age and for the age group below 50 years depending on co-morbidities based on the evolving pandemic situation. The latest electoral roll of legislative assembly will be taken into a reference for identifying population aged 50 or above.

Around 30 crore people will be immunised in the first phase of the vaccination drive. Beneficiaries will need 12 photo-identity proof documents like Voter ID, driving license, Aadhar Card, pension document, passport etc for self-registration on the Co-WIN platform.