OUR CORRESPONDENT
TINSUKIA: The first District Task Force (DTF) meeting for the preparedness of introduction of COVID vaccine in Tinsukia district was held recently at the conference hall of the DC's office under the chairmanship of Deputy Commissioner-cum-chairperson of the District Health Society, Diganta Saikia, in presence of Manjit Borkakoty, ADC (Health), Dr Altaf Ahmed, Joint Director of Health Services, Tinsukia, along with other district and block officials from District-Block Programme Management Unit National Health Mission, Tinsukia.
Addressing the gathering, Dr. Sonowal said that the Government of India had begun its preparations for possible introduction of COVID-19 vaccine and a National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for The first District Task Force (DTF) meeting for the preparedness of introduction of COVID vaccine in Tinsukia district was held recently at the conference hall of the DC's office under the chairmanship of Deputy Commissioner-cum-chairperson of the District Health Society, Diganta Saikia, in presence of Manjit Borkakoty, ADC (Health), Dr Altaf Ahmed, Joint DVID-19 (NEGVAC) had been formed as the highest group that would guide the strategies for vaccine introduction. The COVID-19 vaccine introduction will span over an year with multiple groups being included sequentially starting from Health Care Workers (HCWs), including CDPO, ICDS Supervisor, AWW and AWW helper.
In the preparatory phase, the database for healthcare workers is being collected at district level which will be shared to State HQ. All healthcare workers from government facilities and all private facilities (registered with the district) are to be included in the healthcare worker database. Along with healthcare workers, Anganwadi workers, AWW helpers, ICDS supervisors, and CDPOs from the Social Welfare Department, informed Sangeeta Das, District Media Expert under NHM.
Dr Pallavi Konwar, WHO Consultant, presented a detailed presentation on the preparedness of the COVID vaccine. She added that the main objectives of the DTF meeting was to monitor progress of registration of beneficiaries, to ensure timely completion of trainings, monitoring progress on key activities such as micro planning, communication planning, cold chain and vaccine logistics planning also to identify vaccination session sites for the first phase of COVID-19 vaccination along with vaccinators across government and private sectors to minimize disruption of routine immunization services.