1,400 people to help administer Covid-19 vaccine, says health department

An estimated workforce of over 1,400 people will be required to carry out the Covid-19 vaccination drive in Gurugram once the vaccine is rolled out, according to

An estimated workforce of over 1,400 people will be required to carry out the Covid-19 vaccination drive in Gurugram once the vaccine is rolled out, according to the senior health officials. These are in addition to 286 vaccinators who will be administering the Covid-19 vaccine shots.

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The health department has also sought help from officials of the district administration, Gurugram police, women and child development, and education departments to provide their staff for deploying them as vaccination officers at the 181 vaccination sites that have been finalised.

At the state-level too, preparations are in full swing. In Panchkula, for example, a vaccination trial run will be held on Saturday as a part of the pan-India dry run.

For the appropriate management of vaccination sites in district, teams of vaccinators and vaccination officers are being formed to address a wide range of issues — from crowd management and document verification to data entry on Co-Win platform and keeping a record of vaccine beneficiaries, said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer (CMO) during a Covid-19 vaccine task force meeting held on Friday.

According to him, every session site will be managed by a five-member team, involving vaccinating officer one, who will be in-charge of pre-checking the registration status and photo identity verification before entering the waiting room. After that, vaccinating officer two will authenticate documents on the Co-WIN system. After the vaccination, vaccinating officers three and four will ensure a 20-minute waiting period to look for adverse events in the beneficiary. Besides, a supervisor for every three to five vaccination sites will be deployed.

Dr MP Singh, district immunisation officer, said, “We already have 286 vaccinators. These vaccinators will be accompanied by five people. Based on that additional workforce of 1,430 will be required to carry out vaccine jab. For this, we have asked Gurugram police, women and child development department and district administration to provide the required workforce.”

He said, “For vaccination officer one, we have asked Gurugram police to provide the work force. Likewise, district administration has been asked to provide data entry operators of Saral centres to be stationed as vaccinating officer two. For vaccination officers three and four, women and child development department will support with Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs).” According to him, education department have been asked to appoint teachers for the supervision of the sites.

Once the vaccine is rolled out, it will be administered three times in a week – Monday, Thursday and Saturday – without disturbing the routine immunisation programme. Currently, the cold chain facility at Pataudi can have a stock of over 250,000 vaccine vials. According to Yadav, the beneficiary will be informed about the vaccination through an SMS providing date, time and location of vaccination. After getting the vaccine jab, the beneficiary will receive a message regrading date and time to get the next booster, which is likely to be after 28 days.