Odisha To Pause COVID-19 Vaccination Tomorrow; Know Why

Bhubaneswar: The COVID-19 vaccination drive that began on Saturday, will remain suspended across Odisha on Sunday, Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said.

“A decision has been taken to observe the after-effects of the vaccines on the health workers for one day. The vaccination will resume in the state from Monday,” Mohapatra told reporters here.

Talking about the vaccination in Bhubaneswar, he said that it began at Capital Hospital at 11.05 am. A Class IV employee of the hospital, Biranchi Nayak (51), was administered the first COVID-19 vaccine. After this, the director and a doctor of Capital Hospital were vaccinated.

Expressing happiness over the launching of the vaccination in the state, Mohapatra said the relentless battle against the deadly virus has entered the last phase.

He said a total of 16,100 health workers and frontline warriors will be vaccinated in 161 session sites in the state with 100 health workers at each site.

“We have prepared the database of 3.28 lakh health workers for the vaccination in the first phase. Considering the number of Covishield and Covaxin vaccines we have received, about 1.92 lakh health workers will be vaccinated in the first phase. We have planned to vaccinate the remaining health workers in the second phase by January 25,” Mohapatra pointed out.

He further informed that for the second phase vaccination, the enumeration of the frontline workers such as Police and Fire Services personnel has begun while the enumeration of the municipality workers, executive officers and the employees of the Revenue Department will be done in the subsequent phases and completed by January 25.

The database of these frontline workers will be uploaded on the Co-Win portal.

This will be followed by the vaccination of the persons above 50 years and the persons below 50 years having comorbidity.

Mohapatra said that the health workers who were vaccinated today will be given the second dose after 28 days and their antibody will develop after 14 days of the second dose.

“These health workers will get the SMS for the second dose and they will be vaccinated at the session sites where they have received today,” he informed.

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