J&K Government has completed the groundwork to make COVID19 vaccine available here for healthcare workers, other priority groups by December end.
After identification of locations, spaces and cold chain for storage of COVID19 vaccines and syringes that would be used to administer them, J&K health department has started scooping out manpower for the mega-vaccination drive expected to start over the end of December. As per a health official, 5513 vaccinators had been identified. In terms of logistics and infrastructure 610 cold storage points and 3412 vaccination sites had been located. 79 vehicles, he said, would be deployed exclusively for transportation of the vaccine across the 20 districts of J&K.
Financial Commissioner Health and Medical Education, Atal Dulloo said the task force for COVID19 vaccine was in close coordination with district level teams. “We are keeping our manpower, hospitals and supply-chain ready. The vaccine is expected to arrive over the end of December,” he said.
He said that it was already decided that healthcare workers would be the first recipients of the vaccine when it is available across the country and in J&K. For the purpose, a list of 80,000 such professionals had already been sent to the union health ministry. The next in line, Dulloo said, would be frontline workers, followed by people who are at a higher risk of getting sick from SARS-CoV2 infection.
Frontline workers are people employed in essential services such as police, security forces, sanitary workers etc.
The FC said the vaccination process was a mammoth task in front of the department and would require efforts and coordination between various departments. “It should not affect our routine immunization program too and we are working it out in that order,” he said.
As per a recent statement by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, “COVID19 vaccine will be given to all who need it”. The ministry has developed a digital platform co-WIN for executing the vaccination program.
Across India, the drive is expected to commence simultaneously “within weeks”. Three pharma companies – Pfizer, Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech have applied for emergency use authorization of their vaccine candidates in India. However, no authorisation has been given till Wednesday. The latter two companies have been directed to submit more data by the ministry.