Around 3,200 of the 4800 health and sanitation workers registered for Covishield shots on Day 1 of the vaccination programme against Covid-19 virus turned up at the various vaccination centres across the 24 districts on Saturday and were administered the 0.5ml injections — first of the two shots required for developing optimal levels of antibodies against the lethal virus over a period of 42 days.
“More than 3,200 people were administered the vaccine shots in Jharkhand today (Saturday) across the 48 vaccination centres. All the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) guidelines were strictly followed at all the vaccination centres,” Health Minister Banna Gupta said during a meeting over video conferencing with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan soon after the vaccination for Day 1 concluded.
Gupta also requested the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to grant permission to the state for setting up 139 vaccination booths across Jharkhand. He urged his counterpart from the Centre to include journalists and frontline workers in the list of beneficiaries for the vaccination programme.
A senior official from the National Health Mission (NHM) said that the response to the vaccination programme was positive in Jharkhand despite rumours over social media triggering fear of side effects among locals.
Chief Minister Hemant Soren inaugurated the vaccination programme at Sadar Hospital in Ranchi and hoped that the vaccine proves to be a boon for the people of the country.
“I personally saw the first shot being administered to a sanitation worker here. It is important to keep the beneficiary under observation for at least 30 minutes after the vaccine shot is administered,” said Soren, adding that all necessary arrangements were made at the vaccination centres in Jharkhand for safe immunization.
The vaccination programme began at around 11.30 am on Saturday, but shots will be administered at the various centres 10pm onwards from Sunday, health officials said. The vaccine shots, officials said, will be administered from 10pm to 5pm at all the centres.
Marium Gudia, a sanitation worker at Sadar Hospital in Ranchi, was the first sanitation worker to get the Covishield shot in the city on Saturday. The second shot was administered to Dr. Vijay Mishra, a senior doctor working at Bhagwan Mahavir Medica Superspecialty Hospital in Ranchi.
Dr Mishra said that he was not feeling any immediate side effects of the vaccination and encouraged people to take the shots without any sense of apprehension. “I was under observation for about 30 minutes after the shot, and my blood pressure, pulse and heart rate were monitored. The vaccine is safe and people must not reject it as all rumours have been put to rest,” said the doctor, who treated State Education Minister Jagarnath Mahto at Medica Hospital before he was sent to Chennai.
The vaccination programme was run at 48 centres across Jharkhand on the day, and about 100 beneficiaries were registered to get the shots at each centre, the Government had stated earlier.
However, the list of beneficiaries at Sadar Hospital in Ranchi carried only 72 names on Saturday.