Special drive to give second dose of vaccine today in Andhra Pradesh

VIJAYAWADA: A special drive will be conducted in the State on Thursday to administer the second dose of Covid vaccine to the beneficiaries for whom it is due. Elaborate arrangements have been made in all the districts to ensure the success of the special drive.

Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar has urged the people, who have to get the second dose of vaccine, to go to their respective vaccination centres without fail and take Covid jabs. A total of five lakh doses of Covishield and one lakh doses Covaxin have already been dispatched to all the districts. The first dose of Covid vaccine will not be administered to anyone in the State during the special drive, the Health Commissioner said.

Visakhapatnam Collector V Vinay Chand on Sunday said the second dose of Covishield will be administered at all Primary Health Centres in the district, while Covaxin will be given at KGH and Swarna Bharathi Stadium. There will be separate centres to give Covishield and Covaxin jabs. 

The second dose of Covishield should be taken within six to eight weeks after getting the first dose of vaccine. Covaxin second dose should be taken within four weeks after getting the first jab.Krishna Collector Imtiyaz Ahmed said all arrangements are in place for administering the second dose of vaccine to a total of 45,000 people in the district on Thursday. They include health staff, frontline workers and those above 45 years of age. Meanwhile, another two lakh doses of Covishield vaccine arrived in Vijayawada from Pune.  

The vaccine will be sent to the districts soon. The first meeting of Group of Ministers on Covid will be held on Thursday to take stock of the situation in the State and also the progress of vaccination. State Covid-19 Command and Control Centre Chairman Dr KS Jawahar Reddy took stock of the situation with district collectors on Sunday. He said the primary contacts of Covid positive cases should be tested on priority basis and the number of tests should be ramped up. He directed the collectors and special officers to initiate measures to conduct TrueNat tests. “There is a need to ramp up testing and at the same time field inspections need to be undertaken by the collectors,” he said. 

Dr Jawahar Reddy said the collectors should be on high alert and take concrete steps to curb Covid surge. All Covid Care Centres have been revived. As on date 19,000 beds are available in Covid hospitals and 19,000 more beds will be readied soon. Wide publicity should be given for 104 call centre, he said.