Officials: Vax for vulnerable in TN by May

Officials: Vax for vulnerable in TN by May

Chennai:  03.01.2021

A Covid-19 vaccine for the vulnerable in Tamil Nadu — the elderly and those with co-morbidities — could be available by early May if everything goes well, estimate public health officials.

On Saturday, at the end of the dry run for the first stage vaccination, officials said it would take nearly a month to complete the process for the group as per Union health ministry protocol. The first phase is likely to be slow as adverse reactions and other technical glitches during vaccination will be closely monitored. “After this we will vaccinate frontline workers, including police and uniformed service personnel. By the time we reach the vulnerable population, which forms the large chunk of people in this phase, we will have adequate experience to speed up the process,” said health secretary J Radhakrishnan at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. TNN

Dry run goes smooth but for internet issues

TheUnion health ministryapproved vaccine will be centrally procured and distributed to states as per demand. Health minister C Vijayabaskar, who was in Coimbatore, said it will be administered to 1.6 crore people across the state in the first phase from 47,200 centres. The recipient list includes six lakh health workers in 2,881 government hospitals and 35,403 privatehospitals.

The Centre is yet to roll out the schedule, but has told states 30 crore people including healthcare workers, frontline workers and vulnerable people will be covered in the first phase. It has not permitted use of the vaccine for others as of now. TN public health officials are working on protocol that will allow them to offer the vaccine to multiple groups, Vijayabaskar said.

The state can store 2.5 crore vials of vaccine in cold storage units and has trained more than 21,000 health workers, said officials, adding that each centrewill vaccinate not morethan 100 people a day.

On Saturday, the dry run was done at 17 sites across the districts of Chennai, the Nilgiris, Tirunelveli, Coimbatore and Tiruvallur using at least 2,000 health workers. Each centre had five vaccinators, a doctor, supervisory health officials and 30 volunteers.

Officials checked multiple steps of the process, efficiency of the exclusive vaccination network(CoWIN),internetconnectivity andfacilitiesin theobservation room. “There were some issues with internet connectivity in districts such as the Nilgiris, but overall, we were abletocompleteitsuccessfully,” said director of public health Dr T S Selvavinayagam.

Volunteers took separate exit and entry, wore masks and maintained social distancing norms. At entry, vaccinator 1 verified the identity and vaccinator 2 entered it in the CoWIN app before sending him/her in. No vaccine was given, but the nurse or health worker clicked the ‘yes’ button on the CoWIN app, allowing updation of details on the centralised portal before text messages with detailscan besenttothe volunteer. The volunteer waited in the observation room for 30 minutes.