NEW DELHI: The Centre on Wednesday announced it will provide 2 crore extra doses of Covid-19 vaccines to states by the end of the month in order to complete the vaccination of school teachers and support staff in schools across India.
The additional supply of the vaccines will reach the states between August 27-31 and the Centre said that the Unified District Information System of Education data may be used, apart from ensuring coordination between the education department, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and Navodaya Vidyalaya Sangathan to provide necessary fillip to this vaccination programme.
The Union government has so far provided states with a little over 58 crore vaccine doses of which 3.62 crore remain unutilised.
In the review meeting of the Covid vaccination with states on Wednesday, the Union health and family welfare ministry asked the states to complete the vaccination of school teachers before the upcoming teachers' day on September 5.
In the meeting, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan also nudged states to promptly utilise Emergency Covid Response Package funds and to ensure compliance of Covid appropriate behaviour and other precautionary measures ahead of the upcoming festival season.
The government also stressed on having a definite district-level plan to increase coverage of the second dose of the vaccine, advising states to undertake targeted strategies like earmarking specific days or specific vaccination sites, timing and separate queue to exclusively administer second dose of the vaccines.
Importantly, the ministry said that states should identify districts whose vaccine coverage is lower than the state average and monitor as well as enhance progress of vaccination in these districts.
A caution was also issued on a possible spike in coronavirus cases during the upcoming festival season and states were advised to undertake all possible public health measures to curb this. With 50% funds of ECRP-II package already disbursed to the states, Bhushan also asked them to process procurement and supply orders immediately to procure equipment, machinery, beds, and drugs under the time-bound scheme.
Instructions were issued to make month-wise expenditure plans and oversee corresponding physical progress on the ground while states were also asked to procure and maintain a buffer stock of Covid medicines they deem necessary other than the eight essential Covid drugs compulsorily mandated by the Centre.
Pharma secretary S Aparna alerted the states that most of these medicines can be supplied for use only after two to four weeks post-production which calls for advance planning for their procurement.
Encouraging the states to stock up early when cases are less and therefore demand is low, she advised for procurement in a staggered manner so that the logistics of production are not overwhelmed.
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