Hyderabad: To ensure wider access of Covid vaccines to beneficiaries during the second-phase of the vaccination drive, the Health Department is making efforts to involve all the government healthcare facilities in Telangana to function as Covid Vaccination Centres (CVC), senior health authorities said.
Apart from government hospitals, almost all the private healthcare facilities that provide Aarogyasri and Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) services will also offer Covid vaccination facilities. Before allowing private healthcare facilities to offer vaccination, the health authorities will ensure that they have adequate infrastructure including cold chain capacity, sufficient rooms, and trained vaccinators and have the ability to manage Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI).
The Health Ministry has directed the State health officials to ensure that all the CVCs are pre-registered in COWIN software. The list of CVCs that are available will be adequately publicised along with their accurate location, which will be captured by a GPS enabled-device.
Apart from individuals above 60 years and those between 45 years and 59 years with co-morbid conditions, the second-phase of Covid vaccine will also remain open for healthcare and frontline workers from across all the government and private hospitals and government departments.
The States will decide the target number of doses in a vaccination cycle depending on the already available vaccine doses, additional doses that are likely to be available and second dose of vaccine requirements will be factored-in. The Ministry will indicate the State-wise allocation of vaccine doses from time to time. How vaccine slots will be allotted at a particular vaccination centre?
If a Covid Vaccination Centre (CVC) has 200 vaccine slots for a day, the COWIN software will first allocate 50 slots to beneficiaries who are lined-up for second dose of the Covid vaccine.
Open slots
Out of the remaining 150 slots for vaccination, about 40 per cent i.e. 60 slots will be allocated to open-slots, which includes individuals who have self-registered and booked their slot through COWIN software. The remaining 90 slots will be issued by the COWIN software to individuals who fall under on-site registration and beneficiaries who were mobilised by the field level healthcare workers.
The health authorities here have urged individuals who plan to visit the CVC for on-site registration to plan carefully to avoid overcrowding. The moment a vaccine slot is registered, the second dose appointment will be automatically scheduled by the COWIN system.
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