COVID-19 vaccination will resume in the State on Monday on a regular basis, when the vaccine would be administered to health-care workers four days a week.
Accordingly, vaccination would be held on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Wednesdays will be avoided so as not to disrupt the childhood immunisation which regularly takes place on this day.
The State will continue to have 133 sites and the target will be to administer the vaccine to 100 persons at every site.
ADVERTISEMENT
Some vaccination sites will be re-located as on the launch day itself, the vaccination of the registered health workers had been completed. District administration will decide the sites or shift the sites as required.
In Thiruvananthapuram district, Government Medical College Hospital will be a vaccination site from Monday, while a site would be opened at General Hospital on Tuesday. To cover the coastal areas, sites would be opened at Pulluvila primary health centre and Anchuthengu community health centre also.
At a review meeting of the committee on Adverse Events following Immunisation (AEFI), it was pointed out that there were no anaphylaxis or serious side effects reported in anyone. The State had vaccinated 8,062 persons on Saturday, which included senior Health officials and hospital Superintendents.
ADVERTISEMENT
A good number of people have reported back that they were experiencing pain at the injection site, general body pain, nausea, fatigue and fever and flu-like symptoms. The AEFI committee pointed out that mild side effects and fever-like reactions should be naturally expected just as in the case of some childhood vaccinations like DPT but that there were no hospitalisations.
From Monday, vaccination will be held in the designated sites from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m. Registered health workers will receive an SMS message on the site allocated to them and time. Every person administered the vaccine will be kept under observation for 30 minutes. All sites have been equipped with AEFI kits as well as ambulance facilities in the event of any serious anaphylactic reaction, requiring hospitalisation.
After health-care workers received the vaccination, frontline workers, including police, revenue staff, municipal workers, ASHA and anganwadi workers will receive the vaccination.