To be administered at JSS Hospital and Trauma Care Centre 

Mysore/Mysuru: As many as 11,200 doses of Covaxin, India’s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV), has arrived in Mysuru last evening.

It will be administered to citizens above 60 years of age and those above 45 years of age with comorbidities, at two Centres in city — JSS Multi-Specialty Hospital and Trauma Care Centre (MMC&RI), KRS Road, mostly from Mar. 15. With this, two vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, will be available for citizens. Training for vaccinators will be held in next two days since the quantity of dosage is different in both vaccines.

Removes condition 

The Central Government on Thursday said Covaxin has been moved out of the ‘clinical trial mode’ and that it has now been granted the restricted emergency use authorisation. “The condition of it (Covaxin) being required to be administered under clinical trial mode is no more there,” said Dr. V.K. Paul, NITI Aayog Member (Health). Accordingly, now beneficiaries need not give any undertaking before taking the jab since it has proved 81 percent efficacy in the clinical trials. Hitherto, the Company had insisted that citizens must give in writing that they will not sue in case of any adverse health condition.

Dr. L. Ravi, Reproductive and Child Health Officer and Nodal Officer for COVID-19 Vaccination told SOM that presently, Covaxin vaccine will be administered only in two hospitals in the District, and the number of sites may be increased in district in the coming days. 

He said details of Covaxin allotted to districts in Mysuru region are: Mysuru – 11,200, Chamarajanagar – 7,680, Hassan – 11,200, Kodagu – 7,680 and Mandya – 11,200. The received stock has been stored in the Office of District Health Officer, Nazarbad.

Mysuru in third spot 

Meanwhile, Mysuru district has climbed third spot in the list of vaccinating senior citizens in the State. The first two places are occupied by Bengaluru Urban and Tumakuru. In Mysuru, as total of 10,101 have been vaccinated as on yesterday as against the total of 2.79 lakh senior citizens.

Each one, bring ten

“Each one, bring ten”. This will be the new slogan of District Health Department Officers to scale-up COVID-19 vaccination in the coming days. Accordingly, each Asha, Anganwadi and Health worker have been asked to bring at least 10 beneficiaries each from their area of operation to the nearest vaccination site. 

All Panchayat Development, Health Department and Zilla Panchayat Officers and must ensure that those workers were deployed in rural areas to bring at least ten beneficiaries by each of them. Besides, a weekly target of 70 beneficiaries has been fixed for each worker.

This is being done as the State Health Department was not happy with the vaccination coverage as compared to Kerala and Rajasthan, and has asked all District Health Officials to pull up the socks to improve vaccination drive in their respective districts. 

While the vaccination of health care workers was somewhat satisfactory, it was totally disappointed when it comes to frontline workers due to hesitance of beneficiaries to take the jab suspecting its efficacy. The phase-3 vaccination drive which began on Mar. 1 has not met up with the expected results. The amount of enthusiasm displayed by the senior citizens in taking the first shot was not seen among 45-plus persons with comorbidities, a senior health officer told SOM.

According to him, there are good number of Asha, Anganwadi and Health workers in the district who must convince the rural populace and take them to nearby Primary Health Centres  or Taluk Hospitals for vaccination. The Union Government wants to wrap up Phase-3 vaccination drive by the end of this month to start Phase-4 vaccination for people in the age group of 50 to 59 years.