Entire Delhi to be immunised within a few weeks of Covid vaccine availability, says Satyendar Jain

NEW DELHI: Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain on Friday said that the capital has sufficient infrastructure and systems in place to vaccinate the city’s entire population within a few weeks once a Covid-19 vaccine is made available.

“There is no need to worry about storage of the vaccines,” Jain said. “We have a large number of health care facilities, such as mohalla clinics, poly clinics, hospitals and other installations across the city where a Covid-19 vaccine can be easily administered to people,” Jain said.

“Now it all depends on how early the Centre gives us the vaccine and we can within weeks vaccinate the entire population,” Jain said, adding that Delhi is the country’s capital and should be given priority during the distribution when the vaccine is available.

Delhi government’s Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital in northeast Delhi has been chosen by the Centre as a storage facility for Covid-19 vaccine, whenever it is introduced. The utility block of the designated Covid hospital will be used for the facility, which will be spread over 5,000 square metres.

Jain said there will not be only one storage facility in the city but many other such units will be added as just one will not suffice. “The vaccine comes equipped with cold storage, which is dry ice,” Jain said.

Delhi government is also collecting data of health care workers from both government and private sectors, who are at top of the priority list of the Delhi government for the vaccination programme.

On Thursday, Delhi’s immunization officer Suresh Seth had also said that the capital is geared up for the Covid-19 vaccination programme and the city’s entire population can be covered in a month. He had said that the city has 600 cold storage points and around 1,800 outreach sites for the universal immunizstion programme for children. He also said that the city has sufficient equipment for vaccines that can be stored at a temperature of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius and those that need minus 15 to minus 25 degrees Celsius.