Corona Vaccine Drive For 45 yrs + Starts Today

From today i.e., on April 1, India opens its vaccination drive to everyone above the age of 45 years and speaking on this, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan asked states and Union territories to keep vaccine wastage below 1 per cent.

Along with Rajesh Bhushan, The Chairperson of Empowered Group on COVID Vaccination, Dr RS SHrama also joined to chair a high-level meeting via video conference with Health Secretaries, State Mission Directors of NHM and State Immunization officers of all States. The meeting had topics related to reviews of the states and issues pertinent to COVID vaccination across the country covered.

The health secretary said that there should no dearth of vaccines as the Centre is distributing vaccines among states based on consumption to avoid overstocking as well as under-stocking. Other important topics were covered like to review the vaccination of health care workers and front-line workers done so far and to archive duplicate entries on the Co-WIN platform.

Here are some of the advisories the Centre issued to the states and UTs

– Maintain vaccine wastage at less than 1% as the current National Wastage Percentage is 6%.

– Review vaccine wastage across all levels to minimise the same on a regular basis.

– Ensure timely utilisation of available stocks to avoid expiry of vaccines without usage.

– Timely updating of data of vaccine consumption to be ensured on CoWIN & eVIN portals.

It is reported that vaccine doses are being wasted in a few states like Telangana with 17.6%, Andhra with 11.6%, UP with 9.4% and Karanataka with 6.9%. Overall, India’s vaccine wastage is at 6.5%.