New Delhi: The coronavirus vaccine, once available, will be distributed under a special COVID-19 immunization program and the Center will purchase the doses directly and make them available to priority groups, official sources said. According to them, the Center will purchase the vaccine directly to make it available to priority groups free of charge through the existing network of states and districts. States have been asked not to chart separate procurement routes, they said.
The Center, with the help of the state and territorial governments of the union, has begun the process of identifying some 30 million priority beneficiaries to whom the vaccine dose would be administered in the initial phase. This special COVID-19 immunization program would run in parallel with the Universal Immunization Program, but will use its processes, technology and network from the existing vaccine distribution framework, the sources said.
The government has demarcated four categories of people for vaccination in the initial phase: around a crore of health professionals, including doctors, MBBS students, nurses and ASHA workers, etc .; about two million frontline workers, including workers in municipal corporations, police personnel and the armed forces; about 26 million people over the age of 50; and a special group of children under 50 with comorbidities and requiring specialized care. “States were asked to enlist priority population groups in mid-November … Each person on the immunization list will be linked with their Aadhaar cards to track them,” said a source.
The existing digital platform and processes used for the Universal Immunization Program (UIP) are being improved to track the administration and movement of the COVID-19 vaccine, from acquisition to storage and distribution to individual beneficiaries, as make the vaccine available, Health Ministry officials have said. In addition, online training modules for vaccinators are being developed. The digital platform that is being improved is the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN), which provides real-time information on vaccine stocks and storage temperatures at all points of the cold chain in the country under UIP.
Under the IPU, children, adolescents, and pregnant women are currently vaccinated against vaccine-preventable diseases at no cost to the state. The National Committee of Experts on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 has already mapped the existing cold chain used under the government’s immunization program and has also projected the additional requirement, Health Ministry officials previously said.
Currently, the committee is dedicated to mapping private sector facilities that could meet the needs of supplementing cold chain equipment. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has said that the Center estimates it will receive and use doses of 40 to 50 crore of the COVID-19 vaccine covering about 25 crore of people by July next year.
Vardhan had said that the government is working around the clock to ensure that there is a fair and equitable distribution of the vaccines, once they are ready. India’s biggest benefit is that it has a strong immunization program and is implementing the world’s largest immunization program, with about 27 million newborns screened for immunization annually, the minister said.
“We have an established infrastructure for the supply, storage and delivery of vaccines up to the last mile, under our Universal Immunization Program, where we are administering around 600 million doses to children each year,” he said. “The strength of these experiences in the vaccination landscape, our best practices, and the robustness of our health care delivery system will be leveraged and augmented by using a strong IT backbone to ensure that this huge national mission to vaccinate the Priority groups identified with the COVID-19 vaccine is achieved in a timely manner. The Indian government will leverage the eVin integrated IT platform to manage vaccine distribution, “said Vardhan.
Vardhan reaffirmed the commitment of the Indian government and assured that it has given the highest priority to research and manufacturing to ensure that the vaccine reaches the last person.
A controversy erupted on Thursday after the BJP in its manifesto for the Bihar assembly elections promised free COVID-19 vaccines, once available, to all.
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