M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Dec. 24: Five districts of Jharkhand have been shortlisted for the Covid-19 vaccine called ZyCov – D, read a letter of the state immunisation officer Dr Rakesh Dayal, written to the five civil surgeons and district reproductive child health officials of the districts of Palamu, Bokaro, Giridih, Dhanbad and Ranchi.
A state level zoom training for ZyCov -D was held on Thursday, December 23 for the civil surgeons, reproductive child health officials, medical officers incharge, district level 2 – ANMs, deputy superintendent of Sadar hospital, district immunisation officer and director of RIMS Ranchi.
The state immunisation officer has asked the district health officials to train at least 30 ANMs for administering ZyCov – D vaccine, one from each of the blocks of the concerned district.
This state level zoom training was for training of the trainer (ToT).
WHO surveillance medical officer Dr Mirtunjay Singh, who is now in-charge of Palamu, said he took part in the training programme and gave simple and useful tips about this vaccine ZyCov-D.
He claims that the ZyCov-D vaccine is painless and needle-free to administer. This relieves the eligibles of their fear of injections, as Covishield and Covaxin are both needle-based products that many eligibles despise and have avoided for as long as possible.
ZyCov – D vaccine is given with pharma jet injector where a beneficiary gets two painless shots of this vaccine one each of 0.1ml on both his hands’ deltoid.
Pharmajet Travis device (injector) is safe, easy to handle and comforts the user and the taker in the intradermal needle free intake of the vaccine. This injector has a device of pressure of a piston touching only the skin in common parlance. It was used in mass vaccination during the outbreak of the swine flu.
“The second dose of this vaccine is again 0.1ml on both the deltoid of the hands on the completion of 28th day of the first dose of the vaccine,” added WHO official.
The third dose of this vaccine is to be given on the 56th day in a similar fashion. The schedule of ZyCov -D is 0, 28th day and 56th day, the WHO official reminded.
“This vaccine is to be launched for the eligibles where the first dose vaccination is lagging behind quite considerably,” he stated.
Civil surgeon Palamu Dr Anil Kumar said: “We are ready to have this vaccine and we will go for it all out.”
District epidemiologist Dr Anup kr Singh said that Palamu has 68 percent of the first dose vaccination while Dhanbad, Giridih, Ranchi and Bokaro have 69, 66, 78 and 75 percent of the first dose vaccination respectively.
