Jaipur, Jan 16 : A 93-year-old medical practitioner along with the principal of SMS hospital here were among the first beneficiaries to be inoculated with Covid-19 vaccine in Rajasthan on Saturday.
The nonagenarian P.C. Dandiya and the principal Sudhir Bhandari got the first shots of the vaccine on the opening day of the inoculation exercise.
Addressing the kick-off of the first phase of Covid vaccination drive virtually at 161 centres across the state, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said that Rajasthan will make a mark in the inoculation drive in the same way it had contained the infection spread in the state.
The Chief Minister said: “It makes a good coincidence that the covid spread has been checked across the state due to smart management and now the vaccination drive has also been launched. We will set an example for others by successfully implementing the drive in the same way we made a mark in containing the pandemic.”
Gehlot also appealed to the people to wear face masks and maintain social distancing to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
He congratulated all the scientists, medical practitioners and other staff for the vaccine roll-out within a short span of time.
The Chief Minister said that the vaccine has been made available after many trials and testings and urged all to make the inoculation drive a success and ensure that no one spreads any fake information about it.
On Friday, Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma had said that the state has received around 5.63 lakh vaccine doses of two companies.
The state vaccine store in Jaipur has received 4,43,000 vaccine doses of Covishield (Serum Institute of India) and 20,000 doses of Covaxin (Bharat Biotech).
Similarly, 1,00,500 doses have been made available at the state vaccine store in Udaipur.
The beneficiaries will be given a dose of 0.5 ml in the first phase of the vaccination drive while the second dose of 0.5 ml of the same company will be administered after 28 days of the first dose.
Sharma said that the vaccination drive will take place for only four days in a week so that other health services are not affected during the programme.
Inoculation will not take place on Thursday, Sunday and on government holidays.
He added that the vaccination will be done daily at 161 session places till January 31.
The Health Minister said that precautions have been taken while selecting all the session places so that arrangements for the treatment and timely referral of AEFI cases are available.
Apart from this, all the District Collectors have been directed to remain in contact with the concerned CMHO and RCHO through VC or other means for all other arrangements.
He said that Covid vaccine will be stored between 2 and 8 degrees. There are three vaccine stores at the state level, seven at the divisional level and 34 at the district level in the state.
There are 2,444 cold chain points functional at the Community and Primary Health Centres. A vaccine van has also been provided in each district.
Sharma said that data of more than six lakh beneficiaries was uploaded for vaccination on Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (CoWIN) application, by the evening of January 14.
Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from IANS service.