KCR wants Centre to deploy special teams of doctors for vaccine drive

Hyderabad: In a surprise move, the state government is contemplating to urge the Centre to deploy special teams of doctors and vaccination experts in Telangana districts to ensure smooth run of the vaccination programme.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is likely to put up the proposal before Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the proposed video conference on Monday evening. It may be mentioned here that the PM had convened the video conference with all Chief Ministers to review the arrangements for the first phase of Covid vaccination which would begin from January 16.

Officials said that expert teams were required to address any emergency that may arise during administering the vaccine to the identified groups. Since the vaccination programme was taken up through the official CoWIN app, the Centre should pay special attention at the ground level to address the hurdles being encountered by the States at the time of vaccination and the management of the app.

On the first day of vaccination, as many as 13,900 frontline warriors would be covered in 139 centres. Nearly 2.9 lakh doctors, nurses and paramedical staff would be administered vaccines in the state. Since all medical staff would get the first dose of vaccine, it requires additional doctors and experts to monitor the health condition of the vaccinated medical staff until they are administered a second dose of vaccine after 28 days.

Sources said though the state had successfully completed two rounds of dry run, the state government does not have the required number of experts who can study the impact of vaccines on persons. "Close monitoring of everyone is essential to understand the efficacy of the vaccine.

Once all the medical staff are free from any side effects, it will be easy for the government to go ahead with vaccination to the other frontline warriors - police, sanitation and people aged above 50 years in the next phases," a senior official said that the state would also request to include rural sanitation works for vaccination in the list of frontline warriors.