Bhubaneswar: The first supply of Covishield vaccine allocated to Odisha by the Centre will be arriving in Bhubaneswar in another couple of hours. This is one of the most sensitive as well delightful moments which citizens and all stakeholders in the healthcare chain have been keenly waiting for, said Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare (H&FW) Department, Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra.
The vaccine boxes are scheduled to arrive at Biju Patnaik International Airport at 4:25 pm in a Spicejet flight today. Officers of the H&FW Department will receive the vaccines from the airport and shift the boxes to State Vaccine Store in the Capital City.
Mohapatra along with Director Family Welfare, Dr Bijay Panigrahi visited the State Vaccine Store today afternoon and inspected preparedness to stock the Covishield supply safely.
“I have informed all district Collectors and Chief District Medical Officers to send their vaccine vans to Bhubaneswar. Currently, at the State Vaccine Store we are chalking out a plan on how many number of vaccines will be sent to different districts,” said Mohapatra.
All throughout Odisha, 100 points have been designated for vaccination. After ferrying the vaccines from Bhubaneswar to the district vaccine centres, Covishield will be further shifted in cold chain, to these designated points for vaccination.
“On January 16, which falls on Saturday, all arrangements have been made for carrying out vaccination at the 100 different locations across the State. On January 2 and 8 two rounds of the dry run have been completed successfully, so our personnel is fully geared up for the process,” the Additional CS, Health further said.
“In the first phase, 3.28 lakh health workers including Anganwadi workers will get the vaccine. Odisha has been allocated 4.08 lakh doses of Covishield (by Serum Institute of India) and 20,000 doses of COVAXIN (by Bharat Biotech). Further, we will receive more vaccines in phases,” Mohapatra added.
