Ahead of India’s third phase of inoculation on May 1, the Centre on Saturday issued guidelines for states and Union territories on the “effective implementation of the New Vaccination Strategy” as the country grapples with a devastating surge of cases of the Covid-19. All adults will become eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine and doses can be sold via the market from May 1 in the government’s latest inoculation drive
The states and UTs were asked to prioritise decision on the direct procurement of vaccines by State/UT Government and publicising about facility of 'only online registration' for the 18-45 age group.
The government said in a statement Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan and Dr RS Sharma, the chairperson of the empowered group on technology and data management to combat Covid-19, chaired a high-level meeting to guide the states and Union territories and to review their plans to ramp up the existing hospital and clinical treatment infrastructure.
They have also been asked to monitor the number of hospitals that have procured vaccines and have declared stocks and prices on COWIN portal and schedule vaccination for the eligible population for providing adequate visibility of vaccination slots on COWIN, the ministry said.
They were also asked to train vaccination centre staff about vaccination, adverse event following immunisation reporting and management, use of COWIN and to coordinate with law-and-order authorities for effective crowd management at sites.
The Centre asked states to ensure adequacy in terms of oxygen-supported beds, ICU beds and oxygen supplies, set up centralized call centre-based services for allocation of beds, deploy of requisite human resources with proper training and mentoring of doctors and nurses for management of patients and to strengthen ambulance services.
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