PMC identifies 16 venues for rollout; state receives 9.63L doses at city facility

3 DAYS TO GO FOR COVID VACCINE DRIVE

On Jan 16, 1,600 healthcare staff to receive the first jab across designated hospitals; PMC conducts in-depth training to execute Phase-I drive, resolves glitches; state vaccine store readies for Covishield, Covaxin to be distributed to eight divisions

While the entire nation prepares for the long-awaited mass vaccination drive against COVID-19, scheduled for January 16, the next level of preparations has been flagged off in Pune as well. On Tuesday, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and doctors from private hospitals conducted an indepth discussion and training session for all those involved in Phase-I of the drive, wherein over 1,600 healthcare staff in the city are to be immunised on priority against the novel coronavirus.

The drive is to be carried out at 16 public and private medical facilities: Sutar Hospital in Kothrud, Kamala Nehru Hospital, Kalavati Mavale Hospital, Sadguru Shankarrao Maharaj Dawakhana, Balasaheb Thackeray Hospital, Namdev Shivarkar Hospital, Sahadev Shivarkar Hospital, BJ Medical College, Dalvi Hospital, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, Bharati Hospital, Nobel Hospital, Ruby Hall Clinic, Joshi Hospital, Rajiv Gandhi Hospital in Yerawada, and the College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) jumbo facility.

For this mammoth task, PMC has appointed 16 medical officers in-charge of each of the same number of hospitals. In case of any problems they face, five zonal medical officers have also been assigned.

PMC assistant health officer Dr Vaishali Jadhav, who heads the local body’s immunisation programme, said that earlier, there were complaints of glitches in registration of beneficiaries on the government’s CoWIN portal, and worries on whom to contact for technical issues. “To remedy this, we explained the entire process of how to check name records and other details to staff of all hospitals concerned, along with what errors they might face and how to handle them. Another major challenge is focus on monitoring of any adverse event following immunisation (AEFI) during the drive. For this, kits and beds in observation rooms and a referral mechanism will be on standby,” said Dr Jadhav, adding that orders have gone out to follow all guidelines and protocols established in rehearsals during the dry run.


Officials also said that all beneficiaries from Pune city — around 56,000 healthcare workers — are registered on the government’s CoWIN portal. PMC is slated to receive at least 55,000 allocated doses for the drive, all to be kept safe at its storage facility in Narayan Peth.

“As employees of private hospitals are to be vaccinated, too, their medical facilities have been asked to assign adequate staff for the drive. No more than 100 doses per institute will be administered to beneficiaries per day. So, on January 16 it will be around 1,600 beneficiaries to be vaccinated in a day,” said PMC immunisation officer Dr Amit Shah.

The government will generate a list of beneficiaries for that particular date, which will be conveyed to each hospital. If any beneficiary misses the vaccine on an assigned date, the jab will be rescheduled for the person by the authorities on the next available date.

“PAN card and Aadhaar card are needed to verify details uploaded on the government CoWIN portal at the time of vaccination. All AEFIs have to be updated on the same portal. A consent form need not be taken as it can cause unnecessary panic,” said PMC assistant health chief Dr Sanjeev Wavare.

CONSIGNMENTS ROLL OUT

Meanwhile, also on Tuesday, the state public health department received consignments of 9.63 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), Pune, for Phase-I of the drive. This amounted to 55 per cent of its total required stock. Further, some 20,000 doses of Covaxin, manufactured by Bharat Biotech, were to be received late on Tuesday.

Early in the day, SII had started shipping out consignments to other states by air. The Maharashtra health department received its doses by road in the evening at the state vaccine store in Sangamwadi. “At present, the entire stock of vaccine doses is at the storage facility. They will be distributed as per the number of healthcare workers to various local bodies for the impending rollout,” said Dr Archana Patil, director of health services, Maharashtra.

Health officials said there are over 8.5 lakh beneficiaries among healthcare workers in Phase-I. At least 17 lakh doses will be required to vaccinate this above number in two phases. At present, Government of India (GoI) has allocated 9.63 lakh doses — for 55 per cent of beneficiaries — to the state in Phase-I of the drive. They will be given their second jab 29 days after the first one. The remaining 45 per cent beneficiaries will be immunised based on availability of vaccines allocated by GoI next.

Dr Patil added that the current consignment includes doses for healthcare staff in defence services. “A list will be received from the government, based on which we will distribute the vaccines.”

Dr Sanjay Deshmukh, deputy director of health services, Pune region, said, “The final list of doses to be distributed per division is likely to be received late on Tuesday night. Beneficiaries taking Covishield will not require to submit consent, but those who will be administered Covaxin will have to give their consent. As of now, it is not clear where the Covaxin doses will be distributed.”