Gurugram to get 40K doses of vaccine by Thursday

The district is set to receive almost 40,000 doses of Covishield coronavirus vaccine by Wednesday night or Thursday morning, from the first batch of over 241,000 doses assigned for Haryana

The district is set to receive almost 40,000 doses of Covishield coronavirus vaccine by Wednesday night or Thursday morning, from the first batch of over 241,000 doses assigned for Haryana.

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Senior health department officials said on Tuesday that the vaccine is likely to arrive at the Kurukshetra vaccine storage facility on Wednesday.

Of the total consignment to be received by the state, there are at least 241,000 doses of Covishield from the Serum Institute of India and 20,000 doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, which would arrive later. On Tuesday, the Covishield vaccine reached New Delhi through a flight from Pune airport.

“The vaccine has arrived at the Central government’s warehouse in Karnal for supply to the northern region. On Wednesday, the stock allocated for Haryana will arrive at the state warehouse in Kurukshetra. From there, it will be transported to all 22 districts through vaccine vans and is likely to reach all districts by January 14,” said Rajeev Arora, additional chief secretary, health department.

Covishield has been developed by the Serum Institute of India, a Pune-based pharmaceutical company. It is a local version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that is being used in the UK. The safety and efficacy data of the vaccine generated on over 23, 745 participants above 18 years of age in different countries, showed vaccine efficiency to be around 70.42%. The results from the Serum Institute’s Phase II and III clinical trials on 1,600 participants was found comparable with the data from the overseas clinical studies. On January 3, the Subject Expert Committee of Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation gave approval to Covishield for restricted use in emergency situation in India.

Covishield is one of the two vaccines to get emergency approval for controlling the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus, with the other being Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.

Gurugram will get the maximum number of doses in the initial phase due to the highest number of healthcare workers, over 36,000, registered on the Co-WIN platform, said officials. Across the state, the count goes up to 250,000 healthcare workers. “The first batch of vaccine is sufficient to cover all the health workers, both government and private, as the state is getting almost 261,000 doses. Gurugram will also get sufficient doses of Covishield to cover all its health workers,” said Arora.

According to officials privy to the matter, the exact district-wise allocation of doses has to be approved by the central government. “Covishield will be provided to Gurugram. It is likely the district will get almost 40,000 doses, considering there will be 1% wastage of vaccine at every session site,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer.

Arora said that the inoculation drive starting from January 16 the state will have only limited session sites, as per the guidelines issued by the Central government.

As reported on Tuesday, throughout the state at least 113 sites have been identified for the vaccine launch on January 16, of which six sites are in Gurugram, for the inoculation of at least 600 healthcare workers on the first day. Yadav said, “The vaccine will not be administered on January 17 since it is a Sunday. It will start from January 18 onwards again. However, the clarity on the vaccination strategy is awaited.”