Ghaziabad/Noida: The UP has asked districts to be prepared for the third phase of the Covid
vaccination drive, which will cover people aged over 50 years. Sources said the drive would start sometime next month. The districts are planning to take the help of
electoral rolls to prepare the list of
recipients. Besides, people will also have the option of registering themselves on the
CoWIN app.
The guidelines on who is eligible for getting inoculated in the third stage are still being prepared. But if the officials are to follow the electoral rolls for preparing the list of recipients, a sizeable chunk of the population in the
NCR cities of Noida and
Ghaziabad would be left out. Sources said around 20-30% of the population in the two cities are registered voters in their respective states and are here because of jobs.
Around 8 lakh people in Ghaziabad are estimated to be aged above 50. The Noida administration has prepared a draft of 4.3 lakh recipients. But both these figures include the
migrant population and officials said there was no clarity yet on the final numbers.
Officials, too, admitted that only 70-80% of the population in both cities could be covered if they were to follow electoral rolls for the registration of recipients. They agreed that the process needed to be a bit more flexible for the two cities.
Ghaziabad district magistrate
Ajay Shankar Pandey his team was holding repeated meetings on any issue that might crop up during the third phase of vaccination. The discussions, he said, were also being held on identifying recipients. “The work in this regard will gain pace once we complete the second phase of vaccination, which is focused on frontline workers,” he added.
Across the state, the second phase of the vaccination drive is scheduled to over by February 22. “The state portal for Covid vaccination has added several new features to resolve such issues. One of them is the facility of ‘add beneficiary’, under which new recipients could be added at the centre itself. We think that there will not be much rigidity in considering all such recipients for inoculation. A guideline is awaited in this regard though,” said Dr Abhishek Kulshrestha, the WHO surveillance medical officer.
A senior official from Ghaziabad health department said a massive preparation would be required for third phase, when the number of recipients is likely to be more. “For the third phase, we plan to continue with the inoculation at 40 of our health centres. But number of vaccination sites could be 70 or 80, depending on the number of recipients selected for that particular date. We have the capacity to vaccinate 1-1.3 lakh people in a month. According to this calculation, the drive could go on next six to eight months,” the official added.
Deepak Ohri, the chief medical officer of Noida, said close to 4.3 lakh people aged over 50 had been identified so far. “We have about 80 session sites that cater to the recipients during the vaccination days. The sites and centres could remain the same for the next phase too. However, we will deploy additional manpower at the designated centres,” he added.
The state government has recently allowed an “inter-district probability system”, under which frontline workers who are on duty in other areas can get themselves inoculated there. Sources said the administration might follow a similar approach for the third phase too. Meanwhile, a state-level workshop on Covid vaccination was held on Wednesday. State immunisation officer Ajay Ghai said a special strategy was being taken to increase the graph of the vaccination in the state.