Haryana gears up for COVID-19 vaccination, 1.9 lakh healthcare workers on priority

Chandigarh (Haryana) [India], December 23 (ANI): Haryana Government has prepared data of 1.9 lakh health care workers (HCWs) from both private and government sectors on the Co-WIN portal for successful implementation of COVID-19 vaccination drive, whenever the vaccine is made available in the country.
Sharing details of the preparedness of COVID-19 vaccine rollout Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Rajeev Arora said that the Department has already identified 1,800 vaccination session sites and more than 5,000 vaccinators have been mapped for the process of administering the vaccine.
In order to ensure that the vaccine reaches every district, the health department has 22 Vaccine Vans (insulated) for transporting vaccines across the state.
"Haryana Government has meticulously prepared the vaccine rollout plan and is all set to introduce it. The health department is preparing for the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine and will expeditiously roll it out when available. The platform of the existing Universal Immunisation program of the state with enhanced capacity is being used for the COVID-19 vaccine," Arora stated.
In Haryana, the vaccination will be done at fixed session sites, mapping of session sites are in progress. As per the Centre's guidelines vaccination will be done on election model with the involvement of other departments, the official said.
On the availability of cold storage, he said that the state has sufficient cold chain space to meet additional requirement for the COVID-19 vaccine.
"Furthermore, the category wise vaccination is to be done in a phased manner. The prior experiences of managing huge campaigns like Measles-Rubella (MR) have been an asset and help the Department in formulating practical plans. Besides this, all districts have been instructed to create additional dry space for storing logistics and majority of districts have already created extra space for the same," he added.
Revealing details of the infrastructure for storage, transportation and maintaining vaccine and logistics supply chain, he said that one 'State vaccine Store' has been identified in Kurukshetra, four regional vaccine stores have been identified in Hisar, Gurugram, Kurukshetra, Rohtak, 22 District Vaccine Stores, and 659 Cold Chain points have been identified.
Haryana has 5,387 COVID-19 active cases, as per the state health department's Tuesday's bulletin.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had said that India may begin vaccinating people against COVID-19 in January and the government's first priority has been safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
According to the Health Ministry, there are nine COVID-19 vaccine candidates in different phases of clinical trials in India -- six are under clinical trials and three in pre-clinical phase. (ANI)