The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration (NEGVAC) has advisable that 1 crore wellness workers be prioritised for Covid-19 vaccination. In addition, NEGVAC has recommended two crore personnel from state and central police, armed forces, household guards, civil defence and disaster management volunteers and municipal workers also get priority.
Moreover, practically 27 crore men and women above the age of 50 years, each with and devoid of co-morbidities that worsen Covid-19 fatality/serious morbidity dangers, ought to also be innoculated early on, the professional group has stated.
Health secretary Rajesh Bhushan clarified at a press briefing on Tuesday the suggestions are beneath consideration of the Union government.
He observed NEGVAC is of the opinion that “every single Indian who needs to be vaccinated will be vaccinated” and the roll-out for these concentrate groups could be simultaneous, based on vaccine availability.
There are presently eight vaccines, which includes the Oxford/AstraZeneca 1, Russia’s Sputnik V, and Covaxin (from ICMR/Bharat Biotech), that are either in several stages of trial in India or beneath consideration for the very same. Two of these, Oxford/AstraZeneca’s Covishield and Covaxin, have applied for emergency use authorisation (EUA), beneath the relevant provision of the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules 2019.
Member (wellness), NITI Aayog, and Negvac chair VK Paul stated that 3 candidates are prior to the regulator and could be licensed in the coming couple of weeks.
The ministry has also stated that of the 2.39 lakh auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) who are educated to administer vaccines, 1.54 lakh will be educated for administering Covid-19 vaccination though the remaining will be offered for other wellness services, which includes routine immunisation.
Commenting on cold chain capacity for storage of Covid-19 vaccines, the wellness secretary stated the current capacity can shop sufficient vaccine doses for administration to 3 crore wellness workers and frontline workers.
Bhushan stressed the require to deploy requisite technologies to make certain orderly, smooth implementation of the vaccination programme, which, he stated, could “run for even more than a year”.
The Union and state governments will utilise the encounter from the conduct of the universal immunisation programme and elections to make certain smooth roll-out of Covid-19 vaccination, he stated.
The vaccination programme will be aided by a digital platform — Co-WIN, 1 aspect of which will be mobile information to record the vaccine-recipient’s information upon self-registration. Persons wishing to be regarded for the vaccination programme can register themselves for this by means of the app. The Co-WIN platform will also have a dashboard that will give out relevant vaccine-storage/availability info for cold-chain points to these managing the programme at various levels. Co-WIN Beneficiary Management will do the tracking of a vaccine recipient and handle organizing of vaccination sessions.