COVID Vaccination: Odisha Govt To Create Special CoWIN Feature For Industry Workers, Kin

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has decided to speed up the vaccination of industrial employees and their families (18-44 age group) by creating workplace COVID Vaccination Centres (CVCs) on the CoWin portal as per feasibility.

The Additional Chief Secretary (Health), Pradipta Mohapatra, communicated this in a letter to the municipal commissioners, chief district medical officers and public health officials on Wednesday.

Mohapatra further informed that under the liberalized pricing and Accelerated National COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy, private hospitals are allowed to procure vaccines directly from the manufacturer.

Similarly, industrial establishments can vaccinate their employees and family members in their hospitals by procuring vaccines of their own. However, if such a hospital is not available, they can get their employee and family members vaccinated at the workplace by tagging with a COVID vaccination centre (CVC) of a private hospital.

To accelerate the vaccination drive, Mohapatra has asked the officials to adhere to the guidelines issued by the Union Health Ministry.

—The family members and dependents of the workers, as defined by the respective employers, can also be covered with COVID-19 vaccination at the industrial CVCs, private and government workplace CVCs.

—For industrial and private workplace CVCs, for covering the beneficiaries (employees and family members), the vaccine doses will have to be procured by private hospitals or the industrial establishment with whom respective employers have tied up for the vaccination.

—For government workplace CVC, the beneficiaries of 45 years and above may be covered through the Government of India vaccine supply and the 18-44 years age group through the state government vaccine supply.

Notably, the phase-3 COVID vaccination drive for 18 to 44 year age group started in the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) jurisdiction on May 1 and subsequently in Cuttack, Berhampur, Rourkela and Sambalpur on May 11.