Punjab equipped to administer 4 lakh doses per day, says Health Minister Balbir Sidhu

Mohali administration conducted the Covid-19 vaccination dry run in the district on Friday.

On the conclusion of the mock drill for the vaccine’s distribution at District Hospital in Phase 6 of Mohali, Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that the exercise conducted across the state has been successful and the state is fully-equipped to administer about four lakh doses of the vaccine everyday. “The vaccination dry run was successful state-wide, with requisite men and material in place. All logistics have been worked out and we are good to go,” he said.

Speaking further, the minister said that the simulation of the entire inoculation process has been conducted, the staff concerned has been familiarised with all the aspects of the actual administration of the vaccine, the operational aspects have been thoroughly reviewed and feasibility of the CoWIN Portal has also been monitored.

The minister said that as of now, as many as 1,000 trained vaccinators and four supporting team members per vaccinator are ready for the job. “At present, the state is equipped to administer four lakh doses of the vaccine per day,” the minister said.

He informed that vaccine will be administered only with the consent of the pre-registered recipient/beneficiary and in the first phase of vaccination, 1.6 lakh Health Care Workers (HCWs) from private and public facilities will be inoculated, followed by frontline corona warriors including police, revenue officials and other field staff, and subsequently, the elderly and the people with co-morbidities.

The minister said that he is in touch with the Union Health Minister and has requested him to provide Covid-19 vaccine free of cost to all the states.

In the run up to the final allocation of coronavirus vaccine, the Punjab government on Friday successfully completed the dry run at the session sites constituted at the district hospitals, medical colleges, private health facilities and urban and rural outreach centres. The dosing schedule, as per the preliminary information, involves two doses per beneficiary or recipient with the second dose at an interval of 28 days from the first. Every beneficiary will have to wait for 30 minutes in an observation room after getting inoculated, for monitoring of any adverse events following immunization (AEFI).

According to the minister, 25 beneficiaries, five-member vaccination team and a supervisor per session site participated in the mock drill as per micro-plan finalised for the programme to ensure the smooth run of the activities as per the Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs).