31,700 health workers to get Covid shots in UP on Day 1
Vaccines to be administered in 317 sessions at 311 centres across UP, including 12 in Lucknow on Saturday
LUCKNOW : The Uttar Pradesh government plans to administer the Covid-19 vaccine to 31,700 health workers in 75 districts, including 1,200 in Lucknow, on the first day of the inoculation campaign on January 16, officials said.
The vaccination will be done in 317 sessions at 311 centres, including 12 in Lucknow, on the first day. Uttar Pradesh has received about 10.75 lakh doses of the coronavirus vaccine so far and placed a demand for a total of 11 lakh doses for the first phase.
Additional chief secretary (Health and Family Welfare) Amit Mohan Prasad said, “Vaccination will be held at 311 places in all the 75 districts of the state on January 16. The drive will start at 9am and will continue till 5pm.” A maximum of 100 people will be vaccinated in each session.
Uttar Pradesh chief secretary RK Tiwari, who chaired a meeting of the state steering committee for immunisation, said in a statement issued by his office: “For the first phase Covid vaccination, all directions from the union government have been received.
The vaccination will be launched on January 16. On the inaugural day, a total of 317 sessions will be held across the state. Of these, the sessions at Mahila Hospital, Varanasi and MLB Medical College, Jhansi will have two-way webcast (for monitoring) and the rest of the 315 sessions will be on view only mode.”
Overall, the state had identified 1,500 centres for vaccination in the first phase (that would have more than one day of vaccination), said Prasad.
Around nine lakh health workers would be vaccinated in 75 districts in the first phase, health and family welfare minister Jai Pratap Singh said.
For his part, the chief secretary said that two vaccination sessions would be organised each week and the plan should be chalked out in a manner that all the health workers get covered in three days.
The 12 centres that will conduct the vaccination in the state capital on the first day are King George’s Medical University (KGMU), Sanjay Gandhi Post
Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences, Veerangana Avantibai Hospital, Balrampur Hospital, Lokbandhu Hospital, community health centres at Mal and Mohanlalganj, TS Mishra Medical College. Era Medical College and two private hospitals will also conduct the vaccination.
Dr MK Singh, in-charge of immunisation in the state capital, said, “Once the process goes off smoothly, the number of centres will be increased.”
The King George’s Medical University (KGMU) has finalised the names of 100 beneficiaries, who will be vaccinated on January 16. “The list of names of the beneficiaries will be uploaded on the KGMU website on Friday,” said KGMU spokesperson Dr Sudhir Singh. The beneficiaries would get an SMS on their cell phone, mentioning the timing of the vaccination.
As for the second phase, Prasad said, “Frontline workers in other departments are on the priority list. They include chiefly the state and central police departments, para-military forces, homeguards, jail staff, disaster management, and civic bodies’ frontline workers.”
“The third phase will prioritise the vaccination to citizens over 50 years of age and those below this age having co-morbidities such as diabetes, respiratory diseases, cancer, high blood pressure etc,” the additional chief secretary added.
“The first phase activities are to be largely organised in government hospitals, health centres, block level primary health centres, district hospitals, district women’s hospitals, urban health centres, railway hospitals, government and private medical colleges,” he said.
“Also, big private hospitals in urban areas having more than a hundred workers too are likely to have vaccination sessions as per need. At each vaccination centre, according to capacity, one to three sessions would be held, while at big hospitals, the sessions may exceed three. Every session will need three rooms for use as vaccination room, waiting room, and observation room,” he said.
The officials at the steering committee meeting discussed that each session would have two security personnel, one examiner, one vaccinator, one immobilizer and an extra vaccinator in first and second phase.
There would be two vaccine carriers with each having four conditioning ice-packs, vaccines in the carriers according to the number of persons to be vaccinated, enough AD (auto-disable) syringes, hub-cutter (to cut syringes after use), vaccine vial opener, hand sanitizers, masks, partition screens, anaphylaxis kit, red and yellow bags to dispose of waste.
The officials at the meeting discussed that a total of 4,639 health officers and other staff had been trained for vaccination in 75 districts. At block level, a total of 25,555 ANMs (auxiliary nurse midwives), 1,50,748 Asha (Accredited Social Health Activists), and other frontline workers have been trained. Three dry runs of vaccination were held on January 2, 5 and 11.