More than 1.9 lakh health care workers (HCWs) from both private and government sectors in Haryana will be vaccinated in the first phase of Covid-19 vaccine rollout in the state.

Sharing details of the preparedness of Covid-19 vaccine rollout, additional chief secretary, health, Rajeev Arora said the state health department has completed the groundwork and is all set to introduce Covid-19 vaccine soon in a phased manner starting from HCWs.

For this, the data of more than 1.9 lakh Health Care Workers (HCWs) from both private and government sectors have been uploaded on CoWIN portal, he said.

Arora said that the Department has already identified 1,800 vaccination session sites and more than 5,000 vaccinators have been mapped for the process of administering the vaccine. Moreover, to ensure the vaccine reaches every district the health department has 22 Vaccine Vans (insulated) for transporting vaccine across the state.

He said the Haryana government has prepared the vaccine rollout plan and is all set to introduce it. He said that the Department is preparing for introduction of Covid-19 vaccine and will expeditiously roll it out when available. He stated the platform of the existing universal immunisation program of state with enhanced capacity is being used for Covid-19 vaccine.

The COVID-19 vaccine introduction will span over a year with multiple groups and the vaccination will be done at fixed session sites, mapping of session sites are in progress.

“As per the government of India guidelines vaccination will be done on the election model with the involvement of other departments,” said Arora.

On the availability of cold storages he said that the state has sufficient cold chain space to meet its additional requirement for Covid-19 vaccine.

Furthermore, the category wise vaccination is to be done in a phased manner.

Arora said that prior experiences of managing huge campaigns like Measles-Rubella (MR) have been an asset and help the department in formulating practical plans.

Besides this, all districts have been instructed to create additional dry space for storing logistics and the majority of districts have already created extra space for the same, he added.