Centre in SC rules out door-to-door Covid-19 vaccination

The Centre has ruled out in the Supreme Court doortodoor vaccination of people and said the inoculation will be done at identified Covid19 Vaccination Centres CVC both government and private registered on COWIN for good germane and rational reasonsIt said that four key requirements of CVC under the Covid19 vaccination programme are availability of adequate space adequate cold storage facility adequate number of vaccinators and medical support staff and adequate arrangements for management of Adverse Event Following Immunization AEFIThe Centres reply came on the top courts query whether it plans to undertake nationwide mass awareness campaign for Covid19 vaccination and ensuring outreach in rural areas and underprivileged sections by using mobile vans vehicles and railways to vaccinate people near their doorsteps so as to minimize their travel and potential infection with Covid19The Centre in its 218page detailed affidavit said ldquoIt is submitted that it may be difficult to timely address AEFI in an adequate manner in the situation of a home or vaccination at the door stepsrdquo and in case of any adverse event case management may not be proper and there will be a delay in reaching health facility even though ambulances are stationed nearbyIt added that beneficiaries can book the slots in identified CVCs through COWIN software based on their residence pin code for the comfort and convenience of the people facilitating the vaccination at nearby CVCldquoIt is submitted that maintaining protocol of observation of each and every beneficiary for 30 minutes after vaccination is not possible as each household may have one or two beneficiaries and it may not be practically possible for the vaccination team to spend more than 30 minutes in each and every householdrdquo the government said adding that this will in fact delay the entire vaccination driveIt said that for administration of vaccines logistically the same need to be stored in special ldquoVaccine Carriersrdquo to maintain the requisite temperature and to further prevent contaminationldquoIf the vaccine is administered on a door to door basis the vaccine carrier box would be required to be opened again and again thereby violating its threshold temperature which is necessary to maintain vaccine efficacy and prevent it from causing AEFI which may even affect the vaccine confidence and programme performancerdquo it saidThe Centre further said that repeated opening of vaccine carriers while giving vaccine at each and every house will expose the vaccine to the temperature beyond recommended range and this may reduce the efficacy of both open and unopened vials kept in the vaccine carrier ldquoFurthermore there are chances of vaccine wastage due to increased time required visiting door to door for socioeconomically and underprivileged sections As per the guidelines open vial policy is not applicable for Covid19 vaccine which means a vial once opened needs to be discarded after 4 hoursrdquo it said adding that it will take time to reach out to each beneficiary and this may lead to vaccine wastage of open vials used for vaccinationThe government pointed out that vaccination at home may expose the healthcare personnel and frontline health workers to undue pressures from the community to vaccinate those other than on due list and hence will need additional security cover as wellldquoFurthermore the vaccinator will be travelling and delivering the vaccine at various locations and will always be at risk of getting Covid19 infection Vaccinators will be exposed to multiple household environments as the vaccine cannot be given at door or outside the home The vaccination team will require a sitting place at home and would have to spend some time inside the home of the beneficiaryrdquo it saidThe Centre said that it has formulated SOP on vaccination of persons without any prescribed identity cards under which bulk cohort registration would be possible at designated facilities under special vaccination sessionsThe government said that much of India resides in rural areas which are governed by local selfgovernments at grass root levels like Panchayats and these grassroots level bodies are very successfully representing rural India in all schemes of State Governments as well as Central GovernmentldquoAfter the country entered the digital era almost all these gram Panchayats have established common service centres CSC which have a digital platform to be used by the people These CSCs and its infrastructure is widely and effectively used in rural areas for various purposes and is found to be an effective module taking the development to the grass root levels This provides access to the internet to a vast variety of persons who may not be adept in using it or may not have direct access to itrdquo it saidThe Centre said that Crematorium workers regardless of age be they permanent contractual outsourced and manpower working with contractors engaged in working in all cremation grounds are already included under the priority group of municipal workers under ldquofrontline workersrdquo categoryIt said that similarly all Panchayat workers in rural areas involved in Covid19 activities regardless of age are also included in the ldquoFrontline workersrdquo categoryThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever