Karnataka: Vaccination will be shifted to schools, colleges

Bengaluru: Covid-19 vaccination will be moved out of hospitals and primary health care centres, and will be shifted to colleges and schools in the State. This was announced by Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan on Saturday, who also heads the State Covid-19 Task Force, "All activities pertaining to vaccination in hospitals and primary health centres will be halted. The government has decided to continue the vaccination in schools and colleges to make the inoculation drive more effective." He made the announcement in Bengaluru after a meeting with the officials of the Task Force.

The Deputy CM also announced that those working in the banking, postal services sector, street vendors, delivery agents, essential service providers along with the workers in the crematorium will be treated as frontline workers and given priority for vaccination. The crematorium workers will also receive benefits under Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojna scheme for low-income communities.

"Those who have received the first dose of Covaxin developed by Bharat Biotech will get their second dose and only after that the government will administer the first dose to those who are 45 years of age and above.

Those who received Covishield 12-16 weeks ago will be administered the second dose. Earlier, the gap between two doses of Covishield was six to eight weeks which was extended to 12-16 weeks by the Union government on May 13 after the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization's recommendation" said Ashwath Narayan.

Speaking on the vaccination of the 18-44 age group, he stated that the State government had decided to proceed with the vaccination only after it developed a portal similar to Cowin.

The State's portal will be linked to Cowin." The two-crore global tender that the Karnataka government was set to float to procure vaccines will further be divided into four tenders of 50 lakhs each.