Chennai: With speculation rife about the impending vaccine roll-out to fight the pandemic, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, announced the government’s plan for cold storage chains for Covid-19 vaccine.
Health Ministry’s Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, 29000 cold chain points, 240 walk-in coolers, 70 walk-in freezers, 45000 ice-lined refrigerators, 41000 deep freezers and 300 solar refrigerators will be used for the Covid-19 vaccine storage.
Training modules for medical officers, vaccinator officers, alternative vaccinator officers, cold chain handlers, supervisors, data managers, ASHA coordinators etc are also finalised, while physical training as well as training on virtual/ online platforms have commenced.
Bhushan added, “Adverse events following immunisation is a critical issue. When we undertake a universal immunisation program, which has been done for decades, then some adverse effects are seen in children and pregnant women after vaccination. We can’t deny chances of an adverse event when Covid-19 vaccination begins. The countries where immunisation has already begun, especially in the UK, adverse events took place on the very first day. So, it is essential that States and UTs prepare for this too”.
According to the guidelines issued to states recently, the Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system–a digitalised platform, will be used to track enlisted beneficiaries for the vaccination and anti-coronavirus vaccines on a real-time basis.
At the vaccination site, only pre-registered beneficiaries will be vaccinated in accordance with the prioritisation, and there will be no provision for on the-spot registrations.
The States have been asked, as far as possible, to allocate the vaccine from one manufacturer to a district to avoid mixing of different Covid-19 vaccines in the field.
“There may not be vaccine vial monitors (VVM) and Date of Expiry on the label of Covid-19 vaccine, this should not discourage vaccinators from using the vaccine. At the end of the session, the vaccine carrier with all ice packs and unopened vaccine vials should be sent back to the distributing cold chain point,” the guidelines said.
States have been asked to implement an integrated 360-degree comprehensive advocacy communication and social mobilisation strategy to address the challenges surrounding vaccine rollout progress and benefits. The vaccination team will consist of five members, it said.
Each session should be planned for 100 beneficiaries per day. If the session site has adequate logistics and space available for waiting room and observation room along with arrangement for crowd management, one more vaccinator officer can be added to create a session for 200 beneficiaries, the guidelines stated.