Vaccine rollout likely by Jan 1st week: Mohali DC

Tribune News Service
Mohali, December 11

Mohali is all geared up for the smooth rollout of a Covid-19 vaccine, which is “likely to reach the district by December-end or the first week of January 2021”.

In the wake of this development, the district administration has identified adequate vaccinators and cold chain points.

Girish Dayalan, Deputy Commissioner, said 9,515 registered beneficiaries (health workers) from government and private institutions would be vaccinated in the first phase. He said as per preliminary information, they were expecting the vaccine to be delivered to the district by December-end or by the first week of January. “Training of the staff involved in the administration of the vaccine has been planned and session sites — the places where the vaccine will be administered — have been earmarked,” he said.

Dayalan said primarily, the vaccine would be administered at health institutions since every beneficiary had to be kept under observation for about half an hour to monitor adverse event following immunisation (AEFI), if any. “If need be, schools, community halls, gram panchayat/municipality buildings can also be put to use with dedicated vaccination teams,” he added. The Deputy Commissioner said the vaccine administration site or the session site would be ventilated with three dedicated rooms/areas — the waiting room, the vaccination room and the observation room.

“We are designing a foolproof methodology so that each beneficiary gets requisite, timely and proper dosage of the vaccine as per the directions of the health authorities,” said Dayalan.

He said the vaccination of registered health workers was their priority and no other government official, including him, would be administered the vaccine.