The Nagaland government has constituted a state steering committee, state task force (STF) and district task force (DTF) to establish a coordination mechanism at the state and district levels for administration of the Covid-19 vaccine.

The state steering committee, headed by the chief secretary, will meet at least once a month to devise a vaccine administration process.

The committee will ensure the active engagement of other line departments for various activities related to the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine as and when it is made available.

The state government also directed the committee to create a database of health care workers, who will receive the vaccine in the first phase of immunization.

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The committee will review the state’s preparatory activities in terms of maintaining cold chain, operational planning, communication planning and strategies for anticipated state-specific challenges in terms of geographical terrain.

The STF will monitor the database of beneficiaries and provide guidance on funding and operational guidelines and fix timelines for districts to implement the vaccination process.

It will also involve other relevant departments and key immunization partners in the process.

The DTF will monitor the progress of the database of beneficiaries, conduct training of human resources and monitor the micro-planning, communication planning, cold chain and vaccine logistics planning processes.

It has been asked to fix accountability for each activity at all levels.

Bhadra Gogoi is Northeast Now Correspondent in Nagaland. He can be reached at: bhadragogoi@yahoo.com