Pune gears up for COVID-19 vaccination drive

Pune district administration is gearing up to vaccinate the front line workers as soon as the vaccine is made available following government guidelines.

According to data available with the district collector office over 1.10 lakh front-line workers including doctors and aasha workers. have been identified for vaccination in the first round of programme as per government instruction.

"I have held two different meetings with officials and we are ready with required infrastructure as well as facilities to go for the first round of vaccination as soon as the vaccine is made available'', said Rajesh Deshmukh, district collector of Pune.

The district administration has also identified cold storage facilities to store the vaccine in the district. So far 185 ILR (Ice Lined Refrigerator) and 157 deep freezers have been made ready to store the vaccine doses as it requires the minimum temperature to be maintained.

"We have enough infrastructure and logistics support needed for the vaccination programme. The vaccinators have been trained as per government guidelines and we are following all the protocols for vaccination provided by the government" Deshmukh added.

Earlier Pune district administration had formed a task force led by the district collector to roll out a vaccination programme in Pune. The work related to the vaccination programme has been allotted to the task force members in order to make sure things are done appropriately and are not delayed.

The Central government had earlier indicated that the COVID-19 vaccine in India may get approval by January 2021 and had asked the district administrations across the country to prepare for vaccination.

There are six COVID-19 vaccines in different clinical trial stages in India. Besides, three vaccine candidates are in pre-clinical trial stages.

( With inputs from ANI )