BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government has decided to administer booster doses to polling officials and government employees to be engaged in election duty during the three-tier panchayat poll and civic body elections scheduled next year.
Apart from the vaccination of teenagers, the Centre has also allowed booster doses for frontline workers and elderly people of 60 years and above.
Director of Family Welfare and nodal officer of Covid vaccination Dr Bijay Panigrahi said polling officials and those who will be deployed during the elections are eligible for precaution dose as they are considered as frontline workers.
“They will be administered the booster dose along with the elderly persons and other frontline workers. The gap between the second and third dose will be nine months (39 weeks). However, we are waiting for the guidance note from the Union Health Ministry and the recommendation on the vaccines to be administered as a precaution dose,” he said.
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has set a target to inoculate more than one lakh eligible adolescents in the city. The administration may open camps in schools after getting the list of beneficiaries from the School and Mass Education department.
BMC Commissioner Sanjay Singh said that the municipal corporation is prepared to conduct vaccination of teenagers and administer booster doses. “At present the city has 35 session sites and the number of vaccination centres will be increased if needed. Eligible people seeking booster dose will have to produce a second dose vaccination certificate and Aadhaar card,” he said.
With 228 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, the State recorded over 200 new cases for the third consecutive day on Friday. As many as 225 cases were detected on Thursday and 221 cases on Wednesday.
The daily caseload in Khurda also crossed 100 mark after a fortnight as 105 new infections were reported from the district (87 from Bhubaneswar).
Director of State Health Services Dr Bijay Mohapatra appealed to people to strictly adhere to Covid safety norms to check local transmission of super mutant Omicron as it has high transmissibility. “There is no sign of community spread of the new variant in Odisha so far,” he added.