Around 12000 health care workers in health care facilities in Nagaland will be administered the COVID-19 vaccine in the first phase of the vaccination drive.
The first batch of 26,500 doses of Covishield arrived here on Thursday afternoon. The consignment was received at Dimapur airport by Dimapur chief medical officer Dr Mereninla Senlem and other officials from the medical department.
Principal secretary, health and family welfare department, Amardeep Singh Bhatia flagged off the COVID-19 vaccines at the directorate of health and family welfare in Kohima.
Bhatia said the vaccine doses will be dispatched to nine sites on the inauguration day of the vaccination drive by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio on Saturday.
Two districts of the state, including Dimapur, received the vaccines on Thursday.
He said a lot of preparations have gone into COVID-19 vaccination programmes in the districts.
He added that the sites have been selected very carefully as per the guidelines given by the Government of India.
Bhatia said a team of five officers have been trained for the vaccination.
He said the beneficiary list has already been uploaded in COVID software developed by the Government of India.
Bhatia said the beneficiaries will be selected as session planning in each district and will be closely monitored.
He said adequate security will be deployed in each site so as to ensure that there is little wastage of the vaccine during the dispatch.
In Dimapur district, Senlem said the vaccination drive will be carried out in the Dimapur district hospital covering 100 beneficiaries in the first phase.
She also said Nagaland has very good storage facilities for the vaccine with the required temperature of 2 to 8 degree Celsius.