BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Government has planned to administer COVID-19 vaccine to over three lakh healthcare workers (HCWs) in the first phase as and when the vaccine is available. As decided by the Centre, frontline healthcare personnel, including Anganwadi workers are in the priority list of vaccination.
According to the initial estimation, 3,02,708 HCWs, including doctors, nurses and paramedics in both government and private settings besides the ASHA and Anganwadi workers associated with 3683 health centres across the state will be vaccinated first.
The Health and Family Welfare department has prepared a database of 2,95,349 HCWs in 3463 health centres so far. The details of the HCWs along with their Aadhaar number have been updated in the COVID-19 Vaccination Beneficiary Management System (CVBMS).
While the target has been set to provide vaccine to highest 27,000 HCWs in Cuttack district, 24,148 health professionals will be administered in Ganjam district, followed by 20,830 in Khurda district, 17,942 in Mayurbhanj, 15,080 in Sundargarh, 12,023 in Koraput, 12,000 in Keonjhar, 11,200 in Sambalpur, 10,532 in Balangir, 10,390 in Jajpur and 10,100 in Kalahandi. The rest of the districts have less than 10,000 beneficiaries each.
"The database of two per cent HCWs is yet to be prepared. Districts have been asked o feed the details in the online system so that they will not face any inconvenience while availing the vaccine when it is available," said a senior health official.
Meanwhile, as advised by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the state government has constituted three separate committees at state and district level to devise innovative strategies for monitoring of vaccine coverage once it is available.
While the State-level Steering Committee (SSC) and State Task Force (STF) are headed by Chief Secretary and Health Secretary respectively, Collectors will head the District level Task Force (DTF). Since the vaccination programme will span over a year with multiple groups being added sequentially starting from HCWs, a well-planned mechanism will be developed to ensure that other immunisation
programmes are not affected.
Additional Chief Secretary of Health department PK Mohapatra said, the SSC will meet once in a month while the STF and DTF will review the progress of activities once in a fortnight and once in a week respectively.
"Mapping of vaccination sessions when and where the HCWs will be vaccinated and available human resource of various departments to be deployed for the year-long mass vaccination programme and overall coordination for introduction and implementation of the vaccine are being planned," he added.
The COVID-19 vaccine will be directly procured by the Centre and initially distributed among the priority groups free of cost under a special immunisation programme. The states have been alerted not to go for separate procurement.
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