Haryana receives additional doses of Covid vaccine

The Haryana health department has received 214,000 additional doses of Covishield — one of the two Covid-19 vaccines — for the second dosage to be administered 28 days after the first inoculation, which is currently underway

The Haryana health department has received 214,000 additional doses of Covishield — one of the two Covid-19 vaccines — for the second dosage to be administered 28 days after the first inoculation, which is currently underway.

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Out of the total stock, the allocation for Gurugram is still awaited, according to officials, who stated that the district will get doses sufficient to cover its nearly 40,000 registered vaccine beneficiaries.

With the arrival of the vaccine at state vaccine storage in Kurukshetra on Tuesday, the district health department has also geared up to cover private healthcare workers in the next five days. As per norms, the two Covid-19 vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin — are administered in two doses with an interval of 28 days in between. “The state has received nearly 214,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine. The stock is sufficient enough to easily conduct the vaccination drive in districts like Gurugram having maximum front-line health care workforce,” said Dr Virender Ahlawat, state immunisation officer.

According to Ahlawat, even if the dropping rate is 10% and vaccine wastage is almost 1.1%, the district will get more than 40,000 doses. “The confirmation on the district-wise allocation of the vaccine is still awaited from the ministry of health and family welfare,” he said.

Earlier this week, the state got 240,000 doses of Serum Institute’s Covishield, out of which 44,950 doses were allocated for Gurugram. It also received 4,200 doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin. According to the government data, at least 1,820 were for central healthcare workers and as many as 43,070 were for workers under Haryana government. At least 60 doses were meant for those under Armed Force Medical Services.

As per the state directive, almost 50-60% of the doses have to be reserved in every district. At that time, Rajeev Arora, additional chief secretary said, the target is that by the time the first round is over, vaccine beneficiaries who got the inoculation in the first week can get the second dose on time until the next batch of vaccine arrives. Considering this, the district health department decided to expand the vaccination drive and cover almost 25,000 health care workers before the allocation of the second dose. Dr Virender Yadav, CMO, said, “With the availability of second dose, we can easily utilise the existing stock to vaccinate almost 37,000 healthcare workers.”