Odisha Govt Braces For COVID-19 Vaccination

Bhubaneswar: As the Centre is most likely to start COVID-19 vaccination in January, the Odisha Government has stepped up necessary measures.

Briefing the media on Tuesday, Director, Family Planning Bijaya Panigrahi spoke about the blueprint prepared by the government. The points mentioned are as under:

—3.2 lakh health workers and ICDS (Integrated Child Development Service) workers will be vaccinated in the first phase.
—For vaccination, 29,276 centres have been identified
—In each centre, 100-200 health workers and ICDS workers will be vaccinated.
—For vaccination, registration of each health worker will be mandatory. There will be no spot registration.
—For vaccination, 8276 vaccinators will be engaged.
—In each vaccination centre, one vaccinator, one vaccine officer, one verifier and two supervisors will be engaged.
—After vaccination, each health and ICDS worker will be provided with a certificate after they are kept under observation for at least 30 minutes.
—For safe storage of the vaccines, Odisha has one state-level vaccine store, 9 regional stores and 32 district-level stores.
—For uninterrupted series of refrigerated production, storage and distribution of vaccines, Odisha has 1222 cold chains.
—For the transportation of the vaccines, Odisha has 1796 Ice Lined Refrigerators (ILRs) and 1771 deep freezers.
—For smooth conduct of the vaccination, the state government has formed the task force at the state and district level.