Bhubaneswar: More than 2 lakh health care workers (HCW)s have been vaccinated till date and the process is going on smoothly, the Odisha government informed the Center.
ACS Health & Family Welfare Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra briefed Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary, who reviewed the status of COVID-19 vaccination with Health Secretaries and NHM MDs of States and UTs, through a video conference (VC) today.
Mr.Mohapatra said that as on date 2,06,424 beneficiaries have been vaccinated, which is more than 60 Percent of the target.
While the target has been set to cover 3,38,700 HCW beneficiaries with first dose in all the districts of the State, coverage of vaccines is continuing and will be completed by 10 February.
He said all the District Collectors have been advised to take steps to ensure that the State achieves 100 percent target.
Odisha joined in one of the largest such exercises globally, while the countrywide COVID19 vaccination program was launched two weeks before on 16 January 2021 by the Prime Minister.
Union Health Secretary appreciated the exceptional and creditworthy performance of all States and Union Territories on COVID19 vaccination.
Elaborating on the global landmarks crossed by India, he underlined that India is the fastest country to reach not only the one million targets but also two million and three million marks in COVID19 vaccination.
Several other countries which have had a head start, some as much as 40-50 days, have taken a longer time to reach these targets, he pointed out.
The Union Health Secretary highlighted several issues that need attention of the States/UTs to improve and accelerate the coverage as the country moves forward with the vaccination drive.
Some States having more than 50 percent coverage were advised to improve the percentage coverage of vaccinated beneficiaries as there are many States that need to improve their performance on this parameter.
The Health Secretary pointed out that COVID19 vaccine is available in sufficient quantities and technical glitches on CoWIN have now been resolved.
States were advised to ensure that regular review meetings of the State, District and Block task force were held to assess the emerging challenges, understand the ground issues and promptly address them at the appropriate levels.
It was pointed that there is a huge scope for improvement in the number of average vaccinations per session.
The State Health Secretaries were asked to analyze the daily variation in the number of average vaccinations and take the necessary steps to increase them.
States were also asked to organize multiple simultaneous vaccination sessions/day in the health facilities wherever possible.
This would substantially boost the number of vaccinations per day. He urged the District Immunization Officers to interact with the nodal officers at the session sites on a regular basis to evaluate the scope of this enhancement.
Drawing attention to the recent letter of the Health Ministry, the Union Health Secretary pointed out that a provisional digital vaccination certificate after the first dose and final certificate after completing the second dose is required to be issued.
States were asked to take the necessary steps to ensure that the vaccination certificates are issued to all vaccinated beneficiaries before they exit the session.
