Odisha to Scale Up COVID Vaccination Drive In State From Tomorrow

Bhubaneswar: In an effort to accelerate the vaccination process against Covid-19, the Odisha Health Department has decided conduct five sessions in each medical college from tomorrow.

As per Bijay Panigrahi, the Director of Odisha Health Department, all the medical colleges in Odisha will inoculate 1000 persons each in a day spread in five sessions, making it 200 vaccine shots in each session.

Similarly, all the District Headquarters Hospitals (DHHs) and Sub-Divisional Hospitals in the State will help immunise 200 persons a day spread across two sessions making it 100 vaccine shots per session.

The Community Health Centres and Urban Health Centres will be giving 100 doses of vaccines a day in a single session.

Besides, every vaccination centre will be manned by six vaccine in-charges who will monitor and supervise the process.

Notably, a total of 13,980 health care professional were given vaccine shots on the first day of the drive which begun on Saturday.

The urgency on part of the district administrations was visible after the Cuttack Collector held a preparatory meeting at his residence office on Sunday, which attended by all the medical officers, CDMO of Cuttack and CMC Commissioner.

Speaking about the preparations, Cuttack Collector, Bhabani Shankar Chayani said, "Our primary focus is to achieve 100 per cent vaccination target in the district in coming days."

The Odisha government has set a target of providing vaccine shots to 3.28 lakh healthcare personnel registered in the portal by 25 January 2021. However, as per Panigrahi, "only 1,92,555 health workers will be getting the first shot of the vaccine in the first phase of the drive, then after 28 days the same number of health workers will get the second shot of the vaccine to complete the immunisation process."

The Odisha government on Saturday began its immunization drive at 161 sites spread across 30 districts of the state. The state has received 4.08 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine and 20,000 doses of Covaxin vaccine in the first phase and dispatched those to the cold chain points in the districts.

(Edited By Ramakanta Biswas)