Bhubaneswar: The second consignment of Covaxin reached the state capital Saturday through a special aircraft from New Delhi.
Briefing the media, state Health and Family Welfare director Bijay Panigrahy said, “The state government has received the second consignment of Covaxin through a special flight. We have received the consignment at 8:17am Saturday which has 1,50,760 doses of the vaccine.”
The official said that the doses had reached the state vaccine centre. “We will start dispatching the same to the regional vaccine centres today. Our insulated vaccine vehicles will ensure the same,” he said.
The Health department official said that the use of Covaxin would be confined to Bhubaneswar alone. “We are giving the Covaxin only in Bhubaneswar and it will continue to be so as the norms say that the same vaccine should be given to the persons in the next rounds. So, we cannot change the jab. Those who had taken the first dose of Covaxin have to take the same vaccine in the next round,” he said.
Panigrahy said that the health workers have gained more confidence on the vaccines and assured that all health workers would be covered with the vaccines very soon.
“We have vaccinated most of the health workers who were in the first list of 1.92 lakh. With the current supply of the vaccines, we are now confident of covering all our health workers. We have also noticed that slowly the health workers have started accepting the vaccine and the initial hesitations have declined,” he said.
The state government claims that by the end of January 25, the government would be ready with its second list of frontline workers who would be vaccinated in the second round of inoculation drive after covering the health workers.
“By that day, we will be able to see how many frontline workers we need to cover in the vaccination drive,” Panigrahy added.
The official said that as per the report till January 22, the state has ranked third when it comes to the reach of the Covid vaccine. “We will try to ensure timely delivery of vaccines for health workers,” Panigrahy said.