National Health Mission, Himachal Pradesh revises COVID vaccination strategy; to be implemented from July 19

National Health Mission, Himachal Pradesh on Saturday revised its COVID vaccination strategy that will be implemented from July 19.

"Single session for 18+ category will be created on daily basis on all working days. Sessions must be published between 12 pm and 1 pm, minimum one day before," the letter informed.

"In supersession to the official letter regarding extension of vaccination strategy from July 14, 2021, revised COVID vaccination strategy has been formulated, which will come into effect from 19th July 2021 onwards", read the letter.

Single session for 18+ category will be created on daily basis on all working days. All sessions should preferably be created on COWIN as regular sessions and not as Near to Home Covid Vaccination Centre (NHCVC) (special session), except for tribal areas/hard areas (Dodra Kawar), to ensure session visibility for the general public on Co-WIN.

The ratio of Online, Onsite slots may be decided by the district authority based on previous experience of session booking. For Rural CVCS, Co-WIN allows for session creation with more than 0 online slots. For Urban areas, 50 percent online slots are to be made available at the time of session creation.

Districts may publish session for urban areas with minimal session capacity to limit online session booking based on previous experience and local requirement in consultation with district administration. Sessions must be published between 12 pm to 1 pm, a minimum one day before.

Session capacity and number of sessions is to be planned as per vaccine availability. However, district wise daily capping limit for session planning has been set considering eligible beneficiaries for second dose and population proportion for the first dose.

Meanwhile, more than 41.69 crore vaccine doses have been provided by the Centre to states and union territories so far, the Union Health Ministry informed on Saturday. As per the latest data, 41,69,24,550 vaccine doses have been provided by the Centre through the government of India (free of cost channel) and through the direct state procurement category and a further 18,16,140 doses are in the pipeline.

( With inputs from ANI )