Bhubaneswar: A day after the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) formally approved the emergency use of two vaccines in the country, the Odisha government on Monday said that it will start immediate vaccination after receiving the vaccines.
The Director of Medical Education & Training (DMET), CBK Mohanty, told reporters that the state government has prepared a database of 3.27 lakh health workers to be vaccinated in the first phase and accordingly forwarded a demand for adequate vaccine doses to the Centre.
For the next phase, a database of elderly persons and other frontline Corona warriors will be prepared, Mohanty added.
The DMET informed that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had talked to the CEO of Serum Institute of India (SII) in July last year and urged him to give priority to Odisha on the supply of the vaccine. SII has around 5 crore vaccines and it is most likely to start the distribution in a couple of days, he said.
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Asked about the availability of the vaccines in Odisha, the Director of Public Health, Niranjan Mishra, said it cannot be said right now as to when the Centre will allow the supply of the vaccines. “Once the vaccines arrive in the state, we will start the vaccination immediately,” he added.
On his part, Drugs Controller Annada Sankar Das said the vaccination programme in Odisha will be done in coordination with the Centre.
On the distribution of the vaccines, he said that the Centre till date has not issued any guidelines. The vaccines will be distributed in the state once the guidelines are received, he added.
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