Ranchi: The state health department stepped up its preparedness for the Covid-19 vaccination after the Union government announced its formal rollout from January 16. On Sunday, several trucks carrying fresh stock of walking coolers and ice-lined refrigerators arrived at the RCH campus at Namkum, said officials.
Officials of the state wing of the National Health Mission (NHM) said the training session for AEFI management, transportation facilities, storage and proper handling of the vaccines are being done on a regular basis. The health department has also organised several training sessions for its staff in accordance with the Union government’s guidelines for the Covid-19 vaccine.
State health secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni said, “Our experts, including doctors from medical colleges, officials from various cells from NHM and district officials have been provided technical training in the last week as per SOPs of the Union government. Senior officials have been asked to disseminate the same to people who will be engaged in vaccination drives at the district and block levels to ensure proper implementation.”
For a safe vaccination drive, the state head of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program Dr Praveen Karn said that there are three important parts and that includes proper transportation, storage and administration of the drug.
“In case of Covid-19 vaccines, it will be done without any kind of breach in continuity of temperature. That means the vaccine has to be kept in desired temperature from the time it is manufactured till it is administered to the beneficiary in a session site,” he said.
On their preparations for storage and transportation of vaccines from the state to the block level, he said, “We already have infrastructure for storing vaccines at our zonal vaccine storage centres across the state which are capable of distributing it to each and every district. We have ensured that cold chain points are working at all districts and walking coolers as well as ice lined refrigerators are being arranged at all centres which need to store the vaccines.”
He added that they have also been trained on the procedure of mobility and handling of the vaccines by a technical committee of the Union health ministry and the same is being passed on to junior officials at the district and block levels.
On being asked whether the healthcare staff are nervous about the process and the vaccines with the hype and curiosity about it, Dr Ajit Prasad, nodal and head of reproductive and child health program at the state NHM said, “People are curious and we have been a part of Universal Immunization Programme and have been administering lakhs of vaccines every year so healthcare staff are all ready to handle the challenges and are being trained as per the SOPs too.”