VACCINATION DRIVE
will be sufficient to vaccinate over 120,000 health care workers. A total of 240,000 health care workers have registered with us as of now,” he said.
Union health ministry officials said on Thursday that 3,006 vaccination sites have been readied and supplied with doses in preparation for the January 16 launch, which will be marked by an address to the nation by the Prime Minister in the morning. In all, 16.5 million doses have already been distributed to these centres that dot the length and breadth of the country.
If all goes as planned, India will become only the third country to be able to vaccinate more than 300,000 people a day after United States and China, a comparison of global immunisation statistics suggest. According to Oxford University-based Our World In Data’s vaccination tracker, it took the US 18 days to carry out more than this number of daily vaccinations (on an average): its first vaccinations were done on December 15 and its seven-day rolling average of new doses crossed 302,000 on Jan 1.
According to government data, Delhi has received 274,500 doses of Covishield (Serum Institute of India) vaccine and 20,000 doses of Covaxin (Bharat Biotech). Kejriwal explained that of the 274,500 vaccines, each health care worker will get two shots. Also,10% of the 274,500 vaccines are to be kept for exigencies such as breakage.
“By the time the first round is over, those who got vaccinated in the first week will be eligible for their second dose. We are certain that the next batch of vaccines will be sent to Delhi in the next 2-3 weeks, so more centres can be opened and the vaccination of the next and final batch of health care workers can be initiated simultaneously,” said the official, asking not to be named.
Data seen by HT showed that of the 81 session sites (vaccination centres), 75 will be for the Covishield vaccine, while six will be for Covaxin. As on Thursday, the vaccines had arrived at the district storage units from the Rajiv Gandhi Superspeciality Hospital in Tahirpur. All vaccines will be transported to designated cold chain points on Friday from the district storage units.
Of the 81 centres, north-west Delhi and west Delhi will have 11 session centres – the highest of all the districts in the city. Central, south-west and south Delhi districts will have nine centres each. South-east Delhi will have eight centres, New Delhi seven, Shahdara six, east Delhi five, north Delhi four, and north-east Delhi two centres.. A revenue official in the south-east district said the district has received 28,700 doses of which over 14,300 will be used from Saturday. An official in north-west Delhi said all the sites have also been instructed to arrange the beneficiary list in such a manner that wastage of vaccines is minimum.
“The Covishield vaccine comes in a vial of 10 doses and Covaxin in a vial of 20 doses. We have been asked to list in around 100 people so all the doses in an opened vial get utilised,” said the district official.
At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), doctors said a three-room site has been created in the outpatient block of the hospital as per government guidelines. At Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, a vaccination site has been set up on the ground floor of the post-graduation institute building. The hospital will start off with one site and will later set up two more.
“So far, we do not know which vaccines we will get or who will receive it first. A day ahead of the vaccination drive, the beneficiaries will receive a message with the allotted site and time and we will also receive a message with the details of the beneficiaries,” said Dr AK Singh Rana, medical superintendent of RML Hospital.
The hospital has set up a resuscitation centre right next to the vaccination area for managing adverse event following immunisation (AEFI).
Dr T Jacob John, former head of the department of virology at Christian Medical College-vellore, said, “The decision on whether all the available doses are used to give the first shot to as many people and then wait for the supply of the next batch depends on the current availability of the vaccine and the number of doses likely to become available in the future. In this case, there will be stock to at least give the second shot to all those who have already received one even if there is a delay in getting the next batch. Also, there is no hurry to vaccinate people anymore now that the infection has started declining on its own.”
Officials said the average number of inoculations for each site across India will be capped at 100 for the first day. “We don’t want to overburden the system on day one, and plan to scale it up gradually. We will start with about 3,000 sites on day one, and will ramp it up to about 5,000 sites in about a fortnight,” said VK Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog.
But experts warned that the task for India to sustain the speed and scale of its programme will not be easy.
“Being able to vaccinate about 300,000 health professionals in a day is a huge number considering the arrangements that need to be made to execute the programme of such scale. It’s not just about procuring vaccines but transporting it till the last mile, and also convincing people to take it can be a task,” said K Sujatha Rao, former Union secretary of health.
“The government obviously has the experience of universal immunisation programme to guide them... and dry runs have happened but real-time execution is always different. Something this new had to be attempted in a calibrated manner; you gradually build up the momentum. If they manage to pull it off, then it will be a great achievement indeed,” Rao added.
Officials reiterated on Thursday that after the initial 16.5 million doses already shipped, routine and equitable supplies to states and Union territories will be carried out.