UP Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh on Friday said 31,700 health workers would be administered Covid-19 vaccines on Saturday as the government begins its inoculation drive.
The shots will be administered at 311 centres across the state’s 75 districts on the first day. The government has set up 1,500 such centres to vaccinate around nine lakh health workers in the first phase.
Health officials said the state had received about 10.75 lakh vaccine doses. According to Jai Pratap Singh, 10.55 lakh of those are “Covishield” doses, while the rest are “Covaxin”.
According to the guidelines, all government and non-government health workers will be vaccinated first. While nine lakh health workers are scheduled to receive the shots in the first three days, those who do not get it for any reason will be vaccinated on the fourth day.
“The vaccination for Covid-19 is starting from Saturday and on day one the vaccination will take place at 311 centres across all 75 districts in the state. The number will increase in the coming days. We have already received around 10.75 lakh doses of the vaccines and have been sent to all the districts. Our preparations, including the training of human resources, are complete. The vaccination on Saturday will start at 9 am and will go on till 5 pm as per all the protocols,” said Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad.
He added, “The second dose will be after 28 days, and only after around two weeks from the second dose the body will develop immunity. This is why we cannot be relaxed yet and need to keep following the Covid appropriate behaviour.”
In the second phase, frontline workers such as police officials, jail personnel, home guards, sanitation workers of urban bodies, revenue personnel engaged in work such as civil defence and surveillance will be vaccinated. In Phase-three, people above the age of 50 years, and those below 50 years who suffer from serious diseases such as cancer and diabetes will be vaccinated.
The minister said all necessary precautions would be taken during the vaccination drive, adding that security arrangements and CCTV cameras were in place at all the 1,298 cold chain points.
With PTI inputs
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