AP govt ready to launch COVID-19 vaccination programme from Jan 16: Official

Andhra Pradesh government isready to launch the coronavirus vaccination programme onJanuary 16, starting with around 3.6 lakh health workers whowill be inoculated in the first phase, a senoir healthofficial said on Sunday.The state machinery has successfully completed three dryruns of the vaccination programme so far and everythingrequired for the actual drive has been put in place for asmooth run, Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar said.In all, 1,940 sites will be used for the vaccinationprogramme, of which 1,659 have cold chain points withinpremises.

Andhra Pradesh government isready to launch the coronavirus vaccination programme onJanuary 16, starting with around 3.6 lakh health workers whowill be inoculated in the first phase, a senoir healthofficial said on Sunday.

The state machinery has successfully completed three dryruns of the vaccination programme so far and everythingrequired for the actual drive has been put in place for asmooth run, Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar said.

In all, 1,940 sites will be used for the vaccinationprogramme, of which 1,659 have cold chain points withinpremises. For the rest of the sites, the vaccine will bebrought from the nearest cold chain point, Bhaskar said in arelease.

He said 100 health workers would be vaccinated at eachsession site per day. Each site would be managed by a digitalassistant, an ANM, an Anganwadi worker and one Asha worker.

In the first round only healthcare facilities would beused as session sites while private facilities with more than100 health staff would also be used.

Police security would be posted at each session site,Bhaskar added.

According to the Health Commissioner, the state requiresat least 10 crore doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to beadministered to five crore people over a period of eightmonths.

Bhaskar said a total of 1,31,75,000 vials would berequired till September 2021.

Each vial has 10 doses of the size of the Measles andRubella vaccines and 25 per cent wastage was expected, hesaid.

''We plan to administer the coronavirus vaccine to fivecrore people, with two doses each. Except in May, thevaccination programme is scheduled to be taken up from Januaryto September 2021 and arrangements have accordingly beenmade,'' the Health Commissioner said.

A State Vaccine Store was set up at Gannavaram nearVijayawada while four regional stores were opened in Kurnool,Kadapa, Guntur and Visakhapatnam apart from 13 districtvaccine stores and 1,659 cold chain points in primary healthcentres across the state.