Keypoints:
- Maharashtra is all set to roll out its Covid vaccination drive after a dry run was held in 12 facilities across 4 districts on Saturday.
- 30 million people will be vaccinated in 3 phases till August this year.
Authorities have said that Maharashtra is all set to roll out its Covid 19 vaccination drive after a dry run was held in 12 facilities across four districts on Saturday with the state government training 18,000 vaccinators, setting up 4,200 centres and 3,145 cold chain systems.
State health minister Rajesh Tope said the state machinery was all set. “The dry run was conducted successfully. The [dry] run helped the people involved to understand the set- up required for vaccination. Each vaccination facility will have an observation room and an information cell to ensure proper awareness and will take care of any complications during the drive,” he said.
The state government has estimated that 30 million people will be covered in the first 3 phases of the vaccination drive, which will be meant only for priority groups which consists of health workers, frontline workers and people above age of 50 years and those with comorbidities below the age of 50.
“The vaccination centres at primary health centres at the taluka level and hospitals at district level will have batches of 100 people each. Multiple batches could be vaccinated daily at these centres. There are no guidelines issued by the centre so far for the vaccination of other categories of the population,” said Dr Ramaswami N, commissioner, family welfare, and director, National Health Mission.
According to an official, the vaccination of the remaining categories of the population is expected to be undertaken after these three phases. “However, we expect the Centre to allow the vaccine to be sold in the market for vaccination through private health care machinery,” said another official from the health department.
For the vaccination drive, the government has set up 27 storage facilities at the block level, 34 at district level, one each at division level and a central facility at the state level. “It is like any other vaccine like BCG, pulse polio for us. Once the go-ahead is given by the Centre, the vaccine will be distributed through these storage facilities to the vaccination facilities at primary health centres and district hospitals, medical colleges for actual vaccination,” Dr DN Patil, state immunisation officer.
