Covishield Covid-19 vaccines arrived in Raipur today.

RAIPUR, CHHATTISGARH: The much-awaited Covid-19 vaccine “Covishield” arrived at Swami Vivekananda Airport at 1:40 pm today. A GoAir Airlines flight arrived with the first batch of Covishield vaccines landed at the Airport.

A fully-prepared team of Airport staffers and medical experts received the vaccine consignment and safely unloaded it off the flight and loaded to the special trucks for the last-mile journey to distribution centres.

The nationwide distribution of Covishield began on January 12 and the world’s biggest vaccination drive will begin in India from January 16.

State Health Department has set up a robust system for distribution, transportation and storage. Mock-drills conducted and rehearsal to tackle an emergency situation. Chhattisgarh will get 3.23 ampoules of Covishield vaccines manufactured by Serum Institute of India (SII) in the first consignment.

The vaccine recently got certification by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). The distribution system consists of one state-level, three regional, and 27 district-level cold chain points. Around 630 active cold chain points and over 85000-litre cold chain space is available for storage and transportation of vaccines. There are also 81 additional cold chain points. A total of 1311 cold-box are available for vaccine transportation. There are also 360 dry storage centres for other paraphernalia such as syringes and needles.

State Vaccination Officer Dr Amar Singh Thakur said a total of 1349 vaccination centres have been set up across the state. Vaccines will be administered to 267399 health-care workers, state and central employees as well as armed forces personnel in the first phase. Complete data regarding the beneficiaries have been uploaded to CoWin portal.

Health Department has also trained 7116 vaccination workers. The dry run was conducted at 83 places.  To tackle any contingency situation after the vaccination, Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) system has been placed at vaccination centres. Each centre has been connected to the nearest medical college, district hospital or community health centre. Arrangements to dispose of medical waste have also been made. Deep-pit and short-pits have been prepared at cold chain points. A total of 99 centres have been marked for vaccine launch in the state. Pt Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Raipur and Maharani Hospital Jagdalpur have been marked for two-way interaction.