HYDERABAD: Telangana conducted its first capacity-building and training session on COVID-19 vaccine rollout for district heads of the Medical and Health Department on Monday. The Training of Trainers (ToT) was led by some of the prominent immunisation and public health experts in the city.
On Day 1 of the session, district heads were trained on how to arrive at the vaccine requirement for the ground-level equipment based on the Centre's list of the first round of beneficiaries. "The State does need to augment its storage capacity by 2-3 times. Telangana’s public health system, however, already has a robust network of cold storage, which is monitored with the highest quality and precision," said Dr Srikrishna RSV, Consultant Pediatrician, Continental Hospital & Secretary-General, Indian Academy of Pediatrics Twin Cities Branch.
He added that the district heads were trained how to arrive at the area-specific need for equipment. "While on a nodal level, arrangements can easily be made, say for walk-in coolers and ice-line refrigerators. The need of something like ice-packs, which are needed by the nurse on the ground level as she heads to vaccinate, is more pertinent. For that level of planning, we are training the district heads to use certain formulations and arrive at the numbers," he added.