FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: With the COVID-19 vaccine all set to be rolled out in the country from the coming month, Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant on Saturday said that the State government is in the process of identifying cold storage facilities ahead of the vaccine roll-out.
“Government is already in the process of identifying cold storage facilities across the State before the vaccine roles out,” Sawant said on the sidelines of a function.
Sawant reiterated that heath workers and senior citizens will be the first to get the jab once the vaccine arrives.
The Central government is gearing up for the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine across the country. As the vaccine administrators will play an important role in the vaccination process, training of trainers and those who shall administer the vaccine has been taken up across various States.
To strengthen the capacity of the human resources for the COVID-19 vaccine introduction and rollout, detailed training modules have been developed for different categories of vaccine handlers and administrators including medical officers, vaccinators, alternate vaccinators, cold chain handlers, supervisors, data managers, ASHA coordinators and those involved in the implementation process at different levels.
The training includes operational aspects like organisation of vaccination sessions, use of Co-WIN IT platform for management of the entire vaccination process, deployment of HR cold chain preparedness, management of adverse events, commu- nications and intersectoral coordination, biomedical waste management, infection prevention protocols etc.
The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration of COVID-19 (NEGVAC) has recommended three prioritised population groups, including healthcare workers (HCWs) (about 1 crore), frontline workers (FLWs) (about 2 crore), and prioritised age group (about 27 crore).
As vaccines are temperature sensitive and need to be stored in specific temperature, the present cold chain system consisting of 85,634 equipments for storage of vaccine at about 28,947 cold chain points across the country will be used for the cold chain administration. The current cold chain is capable of storing additional quantity of COVID-19 vaccine required for the first 3 crore prioritised population.
