Maharashtra vaccine drive to resume today at 258 centres

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday said the Covid-19 vaccination drive will resume at 285 centres in the state on Tuesday.

The announcement was made after the CM reviewed the preparations for the drive at a meeting held with state chief secretary Sanjay Kumar, CM’s principal adviser Ajoy Mehta, principal secretary to public health minister Dr Pradeep Vyas and other officials on Monday.“The vaccination will take place four days a week starting Tuesday (January 19). Vaccination will be conducted on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday at 285 centres in Maharashtra,” the CM said.

The state has set a target of inoculating around 28,500 health workers in a day (four days a week) at 258 centres across the state, officials said.

“We have planned to inoculate 28,500 health workers daily at 285 centres. It is like a floating number provided by the Centre, for instance, if we completed an area then we will be shifting to another location to complete the drive.

Going by plan of covering 100 beneficiaries in a day at one centre, it can also be achieved,” said Dr Ramaswami N, commissioner, family welfare and director, National Health Mission.

State health minister Rajesh Tope said on Monday evening that the state government will “review the situation” before restarting the vaccination drive from Tuesday in view of several complaints of minor adverse reactions as well as glitches in using the Co-WIN application.

“At several places where vaccination was held on January 16, we have received complaints from health workers. Though none of the complaints is of a serious nature, we have decided to review the situation first and then resume the vaccination (drive),” he told reporters.

The Maharashtra government on Saturday evening announced suspension of the Covid-19 vaccination drive till Monday owing to problems in the software application.

The Co-WIN platform assists programme managers in states to conducting vaccination sessions. Data of the beneficiaries is populated onto Co-WIN and the session allocation, details of vaccination to the beneficiary, information about the next dose will be captured and communicated digitally. It also sends messages to the beneficiaries to visit the designated centre.

(With agency inputs)