In 1st phase, UP has sought 11 L vaccine vials: JP Singh

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh health minister Jai Pratap Singh on Tuesday said the state government has sought 11 lakh vaccine vials for health workers in the first phase.

Around nine lakh health workers will be vaccinated from January 16 at the 1,500 vaccination centres set up in all the 75 districts of the state, Singh said.

The first consignment of 1.6 lakh vaccine vials arrived in Lucknow on Tuesday and the remaining 9.4 lakh vaccine vials will arrive at eight cities, including Kanpur, Meerut, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Prayagraj, Agra, Bareilly and Jhansi within two days, he said.

The state government has set up cold chains for storage of the vaccine at the 18 divisional headquarters as well as the community health centres and primary health centres in tehsils and blocks, he said.

Initially the health department had made arrangement for storage of 80,000 litres of vaccine in the cold chains

across the state. Now we have increased the capacity to 2.3 lakh litres for the storage of the vaccine.

When asked about the launch of the vaccination drive across state on January 16, Singh said the companies supplying Covid vaccine are under immense pressure to supply the vaccine across the country. The supply of the vaccine is slow, but we hope that Uttar Pradesh will receive the entire consignment of 11 lakh vials for the first phase vaccination drive soon, he said.

The district magistrates have been directed to constitute district task force, tehsil task force and block task force to review the vaccination drive in their respective areas. Officers of all the state government departments, as well as representatives of WHO, UNICEF and UNDP, will be members of the task force, he said.

Medical waste will be disposed of according to guidelines issued by the state government. Control rooms will be established at the district and block level in all the 75 districts. All the DMs and CMOs have been directed to launch massive campaign highlighting the utility and quality of the vaccine to motivate the people to get themselves immunised, he said.

Adequate security arrangements have been made during for transportation of the vaccine in the districts. Security personnel will be deployed 24 X 7 at the cold chain points. CCTVs will also be installed at the cold chain points, Singh said.