New Delhi, December 25: The Union Government is gearing up for the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccine across the country.
As the vaccine administrators will play an important role in the process, coaching of trainers and those who shall administer the vaccine is being taken up across various states.
The dry run for the vaccination would be held in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Assam to cover all geographical locations. Two districts per state will be chosen for the dry run.
Health Ministry on Friday said: “To strengthen the capacity of our human resource for COVID-19 vaccine introduction and roll-out, detailed training modules have been developed for different categories of vaccine handlers and administrators including medical officers, vaccinators, alternate vaccinators, cold chain handlers, supervisors, data managers, ASHA coordinators and all others involved in the implementation process at different levels. The training includes all operational aspects of training like organization of vaccination sessions, use of Co-WIN IT platform for management of the entire vaccination process, deployment of HR Cold chain preparedness, Management of adverse events, communications and intersectoral coordination, biomedical waste management, infection prevention protocols.”
So far, 2,360 participants were trained during the national-level ‘training of trainers’.
The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration of COVID-19 (NEGVAC) has recommended three prioritised population groups including Healthcare Workers about 1 crore, Frontline Workers (about 2 crore), and Prioritized Age Group (about 27 crore).
As vaccines are temperature sensitive and need to be stored in specific temperature, the present cold chain system consisting of 85,634 equipment for storage of vaccine at about 28,947 cold chain points across the country will be used for the cold chain administration.
The current cold chain is capable of storing an additional quantity of Covid-19 vaccine required for the first 3 Crore prioritised population Health Care Workers and Front Line Workers.
