First consignment of over 16k Covishield vials lands in state
The vaccines were transported through a special flight, which arrived at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Airport Wednesday morning
RANCHI: Jharkhand on Wednesday received its first consignment of 16,200 vials (0.162 million doses) of Covishield vaccine from Pune-based Serum Institute of India.
The vaccines were transported through a special flight, which arrived at Ranchi’s Birsa
Munda Airport on Wednesday morning.
State level nodal officer (vaccine) Dr Ajit Prasad said, “We have received 16,200 vials of Covishield vaccine from Serum Institute on Wednesday. Each vial contains 10 doses. We have also dispatched these vaccines to all 24 districts according to their respective demands.”
The district authorities will send the vaccines to various vaccination centres under their jurisdiction, he added.
The nodal officer, however, informed that as per the Centre’s latest directive, the state has to reduce vaccination sites/ centres to 48 only from the 129 planned earlier. This means that each district would now have only two vaccination centres. Out of these 48 centres, one each in Ranchi and Jamshedpur would have two-way connectivity for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interaction with beneficiaries.
Jharkhand has targeted 1.25 lakh front line health workers, including doctors, nurses and paramedics, for inoculation in the first phase beginning January 16. Besides, armed forces would also be inoculated. The state has set up 1,672 centres to carry out the mass vaccination drive. About 7,500 people have been trained to make this drive a complete success. Besides, 800 other officials would be engaged to monitor the programme.
Besides, the state has set up 275 cold chain points for proper storage of vaccines.The vaccine is to be stored at a temperature below 2-8 degree centigrade, an official said.
Each vial contains 10 doses. We have dispatched these vaccines to all 24 dists according to their respective demands. DR AJIT PRASAD, State level nodal officer (vaccine)