Covid-19: Identify vaccinators’ pool, Centre instructs states

NEW DELHI: The Centre has asked states to identify a pool of potential vaccinators and update their details on the Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (Covin) to support the Covid-19 vaccination drive.

In a letter to states, the health ministry said that MBBS and BDS doctors, nurses, ANMs, pharmacists as well as MBBS and BDS interns can be considered potential vaccinators if they have experience in administering injections. Besides, retired personnel can also be considered for the job.

On Sunday, TOI had reported that the government was preparing a list of vaccinators to administer Covid-19 vaccines. While there are around 70,000 vaccinators in the public sector, the private sector is likely to contribute around 30,000 more for inoculating people once a vaccine against SARS-COV2 is approved in the country.

“You are kindly requested to direct the officials concerned to ensure identification of the mentioned potential vaccinators in the database of healthcare workers being created for upload on Covin software. Appropriate training of potential vaccinators will be carried out before utilising them for Covid-19 vaccination drives,” additional secretary in the health ministry Vandana Gurnani said in the letter.

The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 had recently reached out to Ficci, CII and some large hospital chains asking for estimates on availability of vaccinators who could be dedicated for Covid-19 immunisation.

The government plans to use the digital iGOT platform to train new vaccinators. iGOT or Integrated Government Online Training portal is a platform for capacity building of frontline workers to handle the pandemic efficiently. The portal has added many new courses since the beginning of the pandemic to cater to the new human resource demand in healthcare.