Vaccinate all teachers by September 5: Centre to states

In a letter to all states, additional secretary of health ministry Manohar Agnani said the step was being taken to ensure protection of all teachers against Covid-19.

Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday announced that more than 20 million additional doses of Covid-19 vaccines will be distributed to states this month to vaccinate all school teachers on priority before Teachers’ Day on September 5.

Classes underway at a Tripura school on Wednesday. (PTI)

“This month, under the government’s free vaccination programme, we are providing 2 crore additional Covid-19 vaccine doses to all States. We have urged all states that before September 5 that is observed as Teachers Day, states should try and vaccinate all school teachers on priority,” the health minister tweeted.

In a letter to all states, additional secretary of health ministry Manohar Agnani said the step was being taken to ensure protection of all teachers against Covid-19.

“To facilitate this priority vaccination of all school teachers… additional Covid-19 vaccine doses have been provided to all states during the current month (to reach the States between 27th Aug to 31st Aug), for special campaign to vaccinate beneficiaries due for 2nd dose along with teaching and non-teaching staff of all government and private schools,” Agnani said in his letter.

The Centre had allowed state governments to decide on reopening of schools keeping in mind the Covid-19 situation, in October last year. While several states had partially resumed physical classes, there was a complete closure again in April this year after a second wave of the disease hit the country.

With an improvement in the Covid-19 situation again amid drop in cases, several states have begun reopening schools now even as concerns have been expressed over the staff and teachers not being completely vaccinated.

As part of the exercise, the Centre directed states to document the vaccination status of teachers and non-teaching staff from secretaries of the school education department. The data should be triangulated with a unified district information system for education database to know the district wise number of teachers and non-teaching staff of schools.

“This triangulation exercise will help in estimation of beneficiary load for special vaccination campaigns, thereby supporting efficient microplanning of such campaigns at district and subdistrict level through convergence of health and education department officials… and tailor made strategies as per the local needs,” the letter read.

Union education minister Dharmedra Pradhan welcomed the health ministry’s decision and requested all states to cooperate. “Along with securing our future generation against Corona, this will prove to be a decisive step towards removing the obstacles in their studies caused due to this pandemic. I also request all the state governments to give their support and cooperation to this campaign in order to strengthen the foundation of the future,” he tweeted.

States were also directed to make use of district magistrates to oversee the implementation of special vaccination campaigns; and earmarking specific days or specific Covid vaccination centres for conducting such campaigns so as to fully cover the target population group.

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan also chaired a high-level meeting with states to review the vaccination progress. The health secretary advised states to focus on enhancing second dose coverage, for which he stressed on having a definite district level plan to cover maximum beneficiaries.

“The states were also requested to identify districts whose vaccine coverage is lower than the state average and monitor as well as enhance progress of vaccination in these districts,” a statement by the health ministry on the review meeting read.

The secretary also reviewed the policy of maintaining adequate buffer stock of medicines used in treating Covid-19. The states were told that they could also procure and maintain a buffer stock of medicines they deemed necessary other than the eight essential Covid drugs compulsorily mandated by the health ministry.

“…most of these medicines can be supplied for use only after two to four weeks post production when the batch undergoes necessary quality testing; therefore advance planning for their procurement is required. Stock up early when cases are less and therefore demand is low, and procurement should happen in a staggered manner so that the logistics of production are not overwhelmed,” Union pharma secretary S Aparna said.