The Bengal health department has sought information about government and private schools from the education department to prepare a list of teachers who have yet to be vaccinated against Covid.
Officials in the department said arrangements would be made to get those teachers vaccinated on a priority basis.
The move comes following a recent directive from chief secretary H.K. Dwivedi asking the district administrations and the health department to give priority to vaccination of schoolteachers before the state government takes a call on reopening campuses after the Puja.
On Tuesday, Dwivedi met all district magistrates and officials of the health department in a videoconference and asked them to expedite vaccination of schoolteachers, sources in the government said.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier said the government would consider reopening schools after the Puja break if the Covid situation remained under control.
Officials at Swasthya Bhavan said once the list of teachers was ready, the chief medical officers of health of the respective districts would be asked to organise “reach-out” programmes in each block and vaccinate the teachers.
Special camps will be organised where 200 teachers could be vaccinated every day.
“Most of the teachers have been vaccinated under the category of ‘super spreaders’. We are in touch with the school education department. Whoever is left, we will complete their vaccination as well,” health secretary N.S. Nigam said. “We will vaccinate the remaining teachers and their families, too.”
Schools, colleges and universities have been closed since March 2020 because of Covid 19. Schools reopened briefly only for Classes IX to XII in February.
Several chief medical officers of health said a large number of teachers at government primary and secondary schools were vaccinated ahead of the Assembly polls. Polling personnel were brought under the priority list for vaccination then.
“Not many teachers are left to be vaccinated. We can complete the process within a few weeks of the preparation of the list,” an official in the health department said.
