COVID-19 vaccination: Centre issues guidelines on risk groups which are not to be vaccinated

The central health ministry issued directives to states and UTs about contraindications and special precautions related to the COVID19 vaccination drive that starts on Saturday The directives specifically mentioned highrisk groups who should be excluded from the vaccine driveThe Centrersquos fourpage directives mention not giving the vaccine to people with a history of anaphylactic or allergic reaction to a previous dose of the vaccine immediate or delayed anaphylactic or allergic reaction to injectable therapies pharmaceutical products food to pregnant and lactating womenVaccination for people who have COVID19 symptoms who have received antiCOVID monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma and who are acutely unwell and hospitalised should be deferred by four to eight weeks Vaccination for those with a history of bleeding or coagulation disorder should be given with cautionLastminute prepPrime Minister Narendra will be inaugurating the drive and interacting live with health care workers at 1030 amHighlyplaced state government officials said that the vaccination drive will be conducted between 9 am and 5 pm in four slots of 9 am11 am 11 am1 pm 1 pm3 pm and 3 pm5 pm In each slot 25 frontline workers randomly selected by the CoWIN app will get the vaccine On Saturday though the drive will start at 11 am after Modirsquos addressNidhi Choudhary district collector Raigad said ldquoWe have four centres Alibaug Civil hospital Sub District hospital Pen and two medical colleges in Panvel Municipal Corporation PMC limits G D Pol Medical College in Kharghar and MGM Medical College in KamotherdquoThe Collector added ldquoWe have around 8900 health care workers and on Saturday 400 health care staff 100 at each centre will be vaccinated Thereafter the drive will be conducted four days a week for the restrdquoOn Friday evening lastminute preparations were being done at various levelsA doctor at Cooper hospital said ldquoWe were told that a list of shortlisted names would be out by Friday evening but no update was received till that timerdquoA doctor attached to Rajawadi hospital said ldquoTill Friday evening none of us has got an intimation about being shortlisted We are presuming that only a select few will be getting the message late at night or a few hours before the programmerdquoIs training enoughDr Wiqar Shaikh senior allergy and asthma specialist and professor of Medicine Grant Medical College expressed concerns that those in charge of the vaccine centre and administering the vaccine are not trained to enquire about recipientsrsquo histories especially related to allergies asthma and anaphylaxisldquoLooking into this lacuna is an urgent necessity Also training for vaccine handlers of a mere few days according to me is inadequate Even trained doctors need to be an allergy expertrdquo said Dr ShaikhAdditional Municipal Commissioner public health Suresh Kakani told midday ldquoAt least 40 vaccination units across nine centres will operate on Day 1 and vaccinate 4000 health care staffersrdquo Asked about staffers not getting an intimation Kakani said ldquoThe messages would start coming in by late night on Friday to those shortlisted I went to some of the centres on Friday and everything is fine at the ground level On Saturday too I intend to visit the centres to get a firsthand accountrdquoldquoHealth staff who get the SMS about their names being shortlisted should get vaccinated without having any doubts or ambiguity in mind The entire vaccine drive will be a successrdquo Kakani addedA senior BMC official said the Centrersquos letter has been received and that adequate training has been given to staff to record histories of the recipients and take all preventive measures