New Delhi, May 6 (UNI) The Ministry of Civil Aviation on Thursday issued guidelines to facilitate expeditious COVID-19 vaccination of aviation personnel working in public and private sector entities and asked the airports across the country to quickly provide all the logistic support for the purpose.
While issuing the prescribed norms for jab, the officials in the Ministry, said a dedicated vaccination facility would be established by the airport operators in their respective premises to facilitate expeditious vaccination of staff.
The Guidelines also said that the Air Traffic Controllers (ATC), cockpit and cabin crews of the airlines as well as mission-critical and passenger-facing staff would be vaccinated on priority basis.
In the guidelines the Ministry further stated, the operator should immediately contact the State Governments or private service providers (hospitals), which are willing to set up COVID-19 vaccination centres at the airports. There can be more than one service providers at any airport depending on number of personnel working in the aviation ecosystem, it added.
The airport operators must establish facilities like drinking water, help desk, ventilation, fans, wash rooms, vaccination counters and segregated waiting area, the MoCA norms stated.
The cost per vaccination dose can be decided by the airport operator with the service provider and it will be same for all aviation personnel, it mentioned, while adding that the focus of major airports could be on tying up with private service providers.
“For the smaller airports – where the numbers to get vaccinated are less and private players do not find it viable – the airport operators can approach the district or local administration for extending the vaccination programme,” the Ministry said, adding that initially the facilities created by the airport operators would be available for all aviation personnel and then it would be extended to the family members.
“All airport operators are advised to designate a nodal officer - and alternative nodal officer may also be kept in readiness - for coordinating the efforts,” it said.
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