The State government of Odisha has asked the authorities of all districts and municipal corporation bodies not to begin administration of Covid vaccines to pregnant women until the orientation programme for the exercise is completed.
The officials have been asked to wait till training of healthcare managers and workers on the Health Ministry guidelines is done before commencing vaccination of expectant mothers.
The State Health Department in a letter to all district collectors and municipal commissioners has informed that an orientation on COVID vaccination of pregnant women will soon be conducted by the Union Health Ministry in all states.
The district-level healthcare personnel will thereafter be oriented on the guidelines for commencing inoculation of the pregnant women.
The directive comes just a day after the State Health Services Director Bijay Mohapatra informed that the government is all set to kick start the vaccination of pregnant women in Odisha. He said that as there were no studies to assess the effect of vaccine on pregnant women, vaccination was not rolled out for this group earlier.
It may be noted that the Centre has already released operational guidelines for vaccination of expectant mothers.