Delhi’s vaccine drive may start early next week, say officials
NEW DELHI: The immunisation of health care and frontline workers in the Capital is likely to begin by Wednesday, with the first batch of vaccines expected to arrive in the city soon, according to multiple senior officials from the Delhi government involved in the vaccination drive.
Once the doses are available, the government will need a day or two to figure out the cold chain and logistics to start rolling it out, the officials said. The districts have long-listed 55 government and 105 private hospitals, each with over 100 health care workers, to receive the initial roll-out.
This includes hospitals such as AIIMS, Safdarjung, Lok Nayak, GTB, and Hindu Rao, among others. The list of private hospitals includes Max, Fortis, Apollo, BL Kapur, and Gangaram, among others. Vaccine to all the centres will be supplied by the Delhi government and will be free for the beneficiaries.
The list will be finalised on Friday during the meeting of the state steering committee under the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 (Negvac).
“It was thought that the rollout should begin in hospitals first, as immediate emergency care will be close at hand if there are any adverse events. From what we have seen in the US and the UK, some people had allergic reactions, fever, joint pains, and rashes. We need to be prepared for all eventualities as we still do not know how the Indian population will react to the vaccines,” said a senior district official who asked not to be named.
Once the logistics are in place, the roll-out will happen simultaneously across all the selected centres, he said.
“The vaccines should be with us by Monday or Tuesday, after which we will need a couple of days to figure out the cold chain and other logistics to get it from the stores to the sites. Once that happens, the vaccine drives will start across all the selected centres,” said a second Delhi government official.
Even as these preparations are in full swing, the Union government is yet to sign procurement orders with the vaccine manufacturers with some negotiations on costs and paperwork still pending, according to a senior Union health ministry official who asked not to be named. Once that happens -- expected this week, according to officials -- systems are in place for the vaccine transport to start in a day or two. India’s drugs controller on Sunday granted restricted emergency approval to two companies for their Covid-19 vaccines. The first vaccine to become available in Delhi will likely be the Oxford-astrazeneca vaccine, called Covishield in India, and manufactured by Pune’s Serum Institute of India. The other vaccine that has been granted approval for “restricted use in emergency situations” is Bharat Biotech’s Cavoxin.
The first batches of the vaccines will be kept at Delhi’s central storage facility at Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality hospital in Tahirpur. The facility has been prepared and security tightened in anticipation of the vaccine doses coming in. “The two-floor utility block in the hospital was earmarked as Delhi’s central store. Around 90 deep freezers were installed in the block to store the vaccine at the required temperatures. And CCTV cameras have been installed throughout the building to ensure that the doses remain safe. The police have also been contacted to provide additional security when the vaccines arrive. The vaccines are like gold at the moment,” said a third official from the Delhi government health department.
He explained the transportation plan. The vaccines will be sent from the central stores -apart from the Rajiv Gandhi hospital, there is another one in Civil Lines -- to the respective district stores. From there, they will be transported to 621 cold chain points in the city. From here, the vaccines will be carried by fivemember teams to the vaccination sites in ice packs. All the vaccine sites have also been fitted with units to store vaccines at the right temperature.
“Both the vaccines that have been approved by the drug controller have a 0.5 ml intramuscular dose. They are also stored in the same 2 to 8 degree Celsius. The vaccinators have already been trained for the same and no additional training is required,” said Dr Suneela Garg, professor of community medicine at Maulana Azad Medical College who is a part of the state task force.
Several dry runs have been conducted across the city to prepare vaccine sites over the past week, and dry runs at four sites set to happen on Friday.
“After approval to the two vaccines, Delhi Government is making all the arrangements. The health care workers, frontline workers, and people over 50 years of age, or below with co-morbidity will be injected in the first phase of the roll-out. Delhi has 3 lakh health care workers, and 6 lakh frontline workers. The vaccine will be first rolled out to these 9 lakh people,” Delhi’s health minister Satyendar Jain said on Thursday.
He said that the government will start with 500-600 vaccination sites, and gradually scale them up to a 1,000.
There are at least 4.2 million people above the age of 50 years in the city, as per the electoral rolls, and a list of those under 50 with comorbidities is being prepared by the government, HT reported on Wednesday.