The state government on Thursday almost completed distribution of Covid-19 vaccine doses to the sites in Calcutta and other parts of Bengal that have cold storage points and was ready with the list of people to be vaccinated on Saturday.

According to the initial plan, the doses will be administered four days a week, said a health department official.

“On other two days of the week, other immunisation programmes will be held. Sunday is a holiday. The Covid vaccine plan has been prepared in a way that other immunisation programmes are not affected. This is being followed in other parts of the country, too,” said the official.

The government has also decided to train staff at a few more hospitals where it plans to open vaccination sites. Metro spoke to senior officials of the health department and various hospitals on the preparations in the run-up to the vaccine roll-out on Saturday.

The recipients

All vaccination venues have to administer the doses to their healthcare workers as well as to those associated with the hospitals and nursing homes in the vicinity that do not have a Covid-19 vaccination facility.

“We are trying to get a large cross-section of healthcare workers, from various institutions as well as private practitioners, vaccinated on the first day. A venue will have to administer the vaccine to some of its own healthcare workers and some who are not attached to the hospital,” said an official.

The list will also include ambulance drivers.

An official of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation said they had planned to vaccinate some waste collectors every day from the first day. “Our list will include our doctors, nurses, lab technicians and waste collectors,” said an official of the civic body.

Vaccine venues

Across all government-run medical colleges in Calcutta, three rooms have been earmarked for Covid-19 vaccination. Medicine, gynaecology and orthopedics are some

of the wards where rooms have been reserved for vaccination.

The medical colleges have also prepared a blueprint for turning the general lecture theatres into vaccination sites when more people will need to be administered the shots.

At AMRI Hospitals Dhakuria, officials have prepared two places — the annexe building and the diabetic clinic opposite the main building — as possible sites. An official said either of these places would be selected. Health department officials are supposed to visit the hospital on Friday to finalise the site.

The department had requested private hospitals at a meeting on Wednesday to create vaccination sites on their campuses. On Thursday, it gave permission to three private hospitals to start vaccination from Saturday — the RN Tagore Institute of Cardiac Sciences, Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals and AMRI Dhakuria.

“We have been selected among the first sites to vaccinate frontline workers,” said R. Venkatesh, the regional director of Narayana Health, of which the RN Tagore institute is the flagship unit.

He said two sites had been readied adjacent to the emergency ward so that if any recipient developed any adverse effect, she or he could be shifted there. Apart from the vaccinators, five people and a doctor will be deployed at each site.

Till Thursday evening, 18 venues in Calcutta had been finalised where Covid-19 vaccination will start on Saturday.

Distribution of doses

Vaccine doses were transported to the cold storage points of five medical colleges in Calcutta. Health department officials said they had distributed about 93,500 doses in Calcutta. The bulk of the doses was sent to the vaccine storage depot of the CMC on Ballygunge Circular Road.

Sources in the health department said NRS hospital received 3,350 doses, Calcutta National Medical College 1,620 doses, SSKM Hospital and RG Kar hospital 4,250 doses each, Chittaranjan Seva Sadan 850 doses and Calcutta Medical College 3,990 doses.

Last minute training

Health department officials said they would train the vaccinating staff on Friday on the volume of the vaccine to be administered to each.

A fact sheet provided by the manufacturer of Covishield, Serum Institute of India, mentions that the “Covishield vaccination consists of two separate doses of 0.5 ml each”.

The vaccination team will be taught how to use the Co-Win application, a digital platform created by the Centre for the Covid vaccination across India. The vaccination team will also be asked to preserve some vials so that the batch number is known in case of any adverse events.