PALAMAU/GARHWA: The state government has directed all its district’s administration to prepare the list of frontline workers which includes doctors, nurses, and other such personnel. The direction was given following PM Narendra Modi’s announcement that a Covid-19 vaccine may arrive in the country within few weeks.
Now, the district administrations are enthusiastically listing out the frontline health workers for the vaccination at first as per the directives of the Centre.
As per the official data available at Palamau, around 9300 frontline workers are there who carried out the medical related works in the district, however, there could be 12000 to 13000 health workers across the district from both sectors private and government, said Shashi Ranjan, DC Palamau.
While there could be around 10000 health staffs in Garhwa district who can be vaccinated at first stage. The necessary arrangements have already been made to ensure the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines arriving as per the governments plan.
For this activity, Dr. Anil Kumar Singh has been instructed to monitor everything related to the vaccination, including, cold box, deep freezers, ice land refrigerators, cold chain and vaccine carriers ready and functional to receive and store Covid-19 vaccines as and when it reaches here at the district.
The functionality of these cold chains is being administered by the National Cold Chain Management Information System (NCCMIS), which is under the Union health ministry.
The district has a total of 14 cold chains. And one cold chain at each 10 community health centres across the district. Besides this, there is one cold chain each at Daltonganj, urban area, Haidernagar and at Kishunpur.” while, the number of vaccinators in the district is around 125, with a fleet of 165 ANMs (auxiliary nursing midwife).
According to sources, the Palamau district, in its cold chains, stores 1,50,000 doses of polio vaccines, and when the bulk of Covid-19 vaccines arrives, maintenance will be taken care of.
It holds the storages of almost 1,50,000 doses of the polio vaccine. We will make space for Coronavirus vaccines as well,” the child health officer said.
We have chalked out a plan for January 17 when the country will be observing the National Immunisation Day. There will be a massive drive to immunise our children across the district on the day.
Asked if the district has sufficient auto-disable syringes, Singh said, “We expect more to come with the coronavirus vaccines. A disposable syringe is useless for all purposes after it is used once.”
On the issue of cold chains, deep freezers and other such equipment getting damaged due to fluctuating electricity supply, Singh informed, “In our lingo it is called sickness rate of these tools. The national average is 2 per cent. However, in Palamau the sickness rate is almost 1.4 per cent.