HYDERABAD: Telangana received the first consignment of 3.72 lakh doses of
Covishield vaccine developed by the
Serum Institute of India (SII) on Tuesday morning as authorities threw a tight security ring and began distributing sealed boxes to 139 centres across the state.
After the first consignment of 31 specially insulated boxes were flown into the city in a chartered flight from Pune to Hyderabad via Delhi, senior officials of the state health department accompanied the vaccine vans from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) to the state vaccine centre at Koti amid tight security.
The transfer of
vaccines from the vaccine centre to regional centres in 10 districts under the watchful eyes of the police began on Tuesday night.
“It will later reach the vaccination centres on the evening of January 14 and the process will be monitored by special officers. Around 15 lakh syringes have already been shifted to vaccination centres. Also, medical kits were sent to the districts for immediate treatment in case of side effects,” director of public health, Dr G Srinivasa Rao.
Authorities said they are expecting 20,000 Covaxin vaccines from Bharat Biotech to be delivered on Wednesday as well.
The doses received on Tuesday, will cover 1.82 lakh healthcare workers (each person requires two doses to be given at the interval of 14 days).
However, on the inaugural day of January 16, only 4,170 healthcare workers will be vaccinated with 30 beneficiaries vaccinated at each of the 139 vaccine session sites.
With January 17 turning out to be a Sunday, officials said the routine vaccination programme will again commence from January 18.
The state has registered a total of 2.88 lakh healthcare workers for vaccination, including Asha workers, anganwadi workers, nurses, doctors and other healthcare staff working in government as well as private facilities.
While the state is likely to receive a mix of two different vaccines for the first phase of the vaccination programme, the vaccine will be administered first to the healthcare staff, before giving to frontline workers, then to people above 50 years of age and finally to patients between 18 and 50 years of age with comorbidities.
“These four categories of beneficiaries totalling 80 lakh is estimated to be covered by the month of June in a phased manner,” Rao added.
State health minister Eatala Rajender called upon local representatives to play an active role in the vaccination programme to create awareness among people and to make vaccination a priority.
Interfaith prayers were offered as soon as the consignment reached the state vaccine centre. They were received by director of public health Dr G Srinivasa Rao, director of medical education (DME) Dr Ramesh Reddy and Telangana State Medical Services Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC) managing director, Chandrasekhar Reddy.