Vardhan took to Twitter on Wednesday to check misconceptions and misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccination drive.
Tag: Harsh Vardhan
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Highly deplorable to overreact, entice fear without due diligence on COVID-19 vaccine: Vardhan
By PTI
NEW DELHI: It is highly deplorable to overreact, entice fear and spread misinformation without doing any due diligence on the COVID-19 vaccine, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Tuesday after Bharat Biotech released a factsheet specifying conditions when Covaxin should not be given.He was replying to a tweet that asked why such crucial information was allegedly not made public earlier.
The health minister also referred to an earlier tweet by him on January 15, wherein he had posted a chart with details of all those people who should not get the vaccine.
“Highly deplorable to over-react, entice fear and spread misinformation without performing an iota of due diligence. These facts have been in public domain since the beginning. Follow @MoHFW_INDIA (health ministry Twitter handle) to stay informed and do some research before speaking out,” Vardhan tweeted.
In the factsheet on COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin, Bharat Biotech has advised pregnant or breastfeeding women and people with high fever or bleeding disorders not to take the antidote.
The vaccine maker in the fact sheet on Covaxin, posted in its website, said the clinical efficacy of the vaccine is yet to be established and is being studied in phase three clinical trial, and hence it is important to appreciate that receiving the vaccine does not mean other precautions related to COVID-19 need not be followed.
Covaxin has been granted approval for restricted use in emergency situations.
It is India’s totally indigenous COVID-19 vaccine developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology.
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Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan reviews preparedness for nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive
By PTI
NEW DELHI: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Friday reviewed preparations for the launch of the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive scheduled to begin on January 16 and visited the dedicated COVID control room set up at the Nirman Bhawan premises of the health ministry.Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off the first phase of the pan India roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination drive at 10:30 AM via video conferencing.
This vaccination program will cover the entire length and breadth of the country, with a total of 3006 session sites across all states and union territories which will be connected virtually throughout the exercise.
Around 100 beneficiaries will be vaccinated Saturday at each of the session sites, the health ministry said. The vaccination drive has been planned in a phased manner, identifying priority groups.
Healthcare workers, both in government and private sectors including ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) workers, will receive the vaccine during this phase, the ministry said in a statement.
Vardhan said India’s exercise to vaccinate its population against COVID-19 shall be the largest immunisation drive of the world.
He reiterated that both the indigenously manufactured vaccines, Covishield by Serum Institute of India and COVAXIN of Bharat Biotech, have proven safety and immunogenicity records and are the most important tools to contain the pandemic, the statement said.
During his visit to the COVID control room, Vardhan minutely scrutinised each aspect of the working of Co-WIN, an online digital platform developed by the health ministry which will be used to drive the vaccination programme.
It will facilitate real time information of vaccine stocks, storage temperature and individualised tracking of beneficiaries for COVID-19 vaccine.
This digital platform will assist programme managers across national, state, and district levels while conducting vaccination sessions. It will help them track beneficiary coverage, beneficiary dropouts, sessions planned v/s sessions held and vaccine utilisation, the ministry stated.
The platform enables national and state administrators to view and sort data of beneficiaries as per their gender, age and co-morbidity. They can also view the metadata of vaccinations and adverse event following immunization (AEFI) reported from constituent districts across states and union territories, the ministry said.
District administrators can additionally create session sites at any location by entering the pin-code, followed by specifying the locality or villages and subsequently assigning a vaccination. Vardhan suggested that the software modifications and lessons learnt while using the highly advanced Co-WIN platform be incorporated into India’s universal immunisation program, the statement stated.
He also reviewed the beneficiary registration page for all non-prioritised groups on CoWIN.
He suggested pre-populating the software with beneficiaries by seeding it with electoral database, in addition to other documents that are authorised for registration.
“The dedicated COVID Control Room has been involved in the massive exercise of monitoring district wise COVID-19 data from across the country as well as in depth analysis of the data to interpret and evaluate the status of the pandemic.”
“For the last several months, through this dedicated control room, the government has been closely monitoring parameters such as case fatality rates, infection rates, death rates, and other parameters based on which containment strategies have been continuously evolved,” the ministry said.
The control room has also been helping to track and record best strategies being adopted by different countries as a part of their response system and translating them into key learnings for India.
The Union minister also reviewed the working of the ‘communications control room’ which has been closely monitoring the disinformation campaigns and rumour mongering in relation to administering of COVID-19 vaccines.
He advised the administrative machinery to go all out to counter the misinformation campaign being spread by vested interests.
The full initial procurement of 1.65 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin– has been allocated to all states and union territories in proportion to their healthcare workers database.
States and union territories have been advised to utilise a maximum of 10 days in a fortnight for the COVID-19 vaccination.
They have also been advised to organise vaccination sessions taking into account 10 per cent reserve/wastage doses and an average of 100 vaccinations per session per day.
Therefore, any undue haste on the parts of the states to organise unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day is not advised, the ministry had said on Wednesday.
The states and union territories have also been advised to increase the number of vaccination session sites that would be operational every day in a progressive manner as the vaccination process stabilises and moves forward.
According to the government, the shots will be offered first to an estimated one crore healthcare workers, and around two crore frontline workers, and then to persons above 50 years of age, followed by persons younger than 50 years of age with associated comorbidities.
Cost of vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers will be borne by the central government.
Vardhan will be visiting the new OPD wing of AIIMS between 10-10:30 AM on Saturday to join the AIIMS doctors and potential vaccine beneficiaries to participate in and witness the launch of the vaccination.
He is also scheduled to visit a few more sites in the capital subsequently.
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AIIMS made enormous contributions during COVID crisis: Health Minister Harsh Vardhan
By PTI
NEW DELHI: AIIMS has made enormous contributions to patient care, research and education during the COVID crisis, and daily battles fought by the AIIMS fraternity must be remembered, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Monday.Vardhan presided over the 47th Convocation Ceremony at AIIMS, New Delhi along with Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO SEARO.
Formulating a new vision for AIIMS by looking at the undaunting spirit of its founder, he said, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur reached out to foreign countries and international development partners to make up for the shortage in fund allocation in her quest to provide world-class medical education to common Indians.
Vardhan expressed his elation at the perseverance of the institute in continuing to deliver excellence in the field of health.
He also warned against complacency and stagnation.
“We have to change and progress. We cannot be left standing in a changing world,” he said.
Appreciating the institute’s role in the ongoing COVID crisis, Vardhan observed AIIMS has made enormous contributions to patient care, research and education during the crisis.
“As we recover from the pandemic which has shaken us to the core, we must remember the daily battles fought by the AIIMS fraternity. Our doctors are our real heroes,” he said.
He then proceeded to lay out his vision for the institute in critical points of fostering of an environment that attracts the most talented faculty and staff, student-centric policies with a focus on adult-learners as the present world require lifelong learning, stress on academic excellence and holistic learning and effective use of innovative means provided by technology in higher education among others.
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Will be able to vaccinate entire population soon against COVID-19: Harsh Vardhan
By PTI
CHENNAI: Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday said soon it would be a reality to vaccinate the entire population in the country against COVID-19 after prioritising risk groups.The Centre has started a new COVID platform to track particulars of potential vaccine beneficiaries and also issue electronic certificates to them, he told reporters after reviewing the dry run of administering COVID-19 vaccine at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital here as part of a state-wide programme.
India, he said, has done extremely well in developing vaccines in the shortest possible time, and presently two vaccines have been given emergency use authorisation.
“In the next few days, also in the near future, we should be able to give this vaccine to our countrymen prioritising those who are at risk in public and private sectors. The government has already made known the scheme of things,” he added.
The Minister also visited the Government Omandurar Hospital here and a few other centres here.
In a country that is vast like India with a population of 1.35 billion, everything was done smoothly and meticulously without any glitches.
“We started the preparation for the impending vaccine drive against COVID four or five months ago after prime minister Narendra Modiji constituted the national expert group for vaccination. We worked all the minute details and shared the information with those at grassroot level,” he said.
In the process, several lakhs of health workers were trained adequately.
Earlier, the government used to track the vaccine in terms of the temperature it was stored.
“Now we started the new COVID platform in tracking the details of potential beneficiaries, places where they are likely to get the shots, pre and post vaccination including giving an electronic certificate and follow it up with the second dose with detailed text messages and reminders,” the Minister said.
The details of this 150-page document has been shared with all stakeholders to make the vaccination drive successful, he added.
India was the first country in the world to take note of the pandemic on January 6, 2020 and launch into action.
A year of action has led to the country having one million testing kits per day from a mere one when the pandemic started.
India has the highest recovery rate and the lowest fatality rate and almost all those infected got treated and returned home.
The scientists and medical fraternity besides those in diverse fields rose to the occasion and displayed exemplary dedication and commitment.
“We are able to export PPE kits, N95 masks and ventilators – almost everything that people used to talk about shortage then. Things transformed for the better due to the inspiration given by the prime minister for the development of Atma Nirbhar Bharat,” Harsh Vardhan said.
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Three-day nationwide polio immunisation drive to begin on January 17: Vardhan
By ANI
CHENNAI: A three-day national immunisation drive for polio will begin in the country on January 17, said Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday.“Three-day national immunisation drive for polio will begin on January 17. This is essential to maintain the overall immunity level of our country particularly pertaining to polio,” said the minister after his visit to the session site in Government General Hospital in Chennai to review the second dry run for coronavirus vaccination on Friday.
Talking about the COVID-19 vaccination, Vardhan said the vaccination should start in the country in the next few days and requested the NGOs working in the field of health to help in the smooth rollout of the process.
“In the next few days, in the near future, we should be able to give these vaccines to our countrymen. It will be given to our healthcare professional followed by frontline workers. I request the NGOs working in the field of health to help in the smooth conduct of the COVID-19 vaccination programme and mobilisation of beneficiaries in the best possible manner,” he stated.
“In the past year, government and social organisations, scientists and medical practitioners showed exemplary performance in managing COVID-19 situation. India has the highest recovery rate and the lowest fatality rate. We started journey with one testing lab and today we have around 2,300 labs in the country,” the minister added further.
He said the government has ensured that every details regarding vaccination is conveyed to the people from the national level to the grassroot level.
“On January 2, we did a dry run in almost 125 districts in the country. Today, we are doing it across the country except for the three states, which did it earlier… Lakhs of healthcare workers are being trained through these dry runs and the process to train more is still going on,” Vardhan stated.
The minister is on a visit to Tamil Nadu to oversee the dry run drill for coronavirus vaccination.
The second nationwide mock drill on the COVID-19 vaccination is being held at three-session sites of 736 districts across 33 states/UTs today.
The dry run is aimed at testing the laid out mechanisms for COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in the health system. It will also help to assess operational feasibility of using Co-WIN application in a field environment for planning, implementation and reporting at the block, district and state level.
According to the health ministry, the objective of the mock drill on COVID-19 vaccination is to simulate the actual vaccine administration event.
COVID-19 vaccines of Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech have been granted permission by Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for restricted use in an emergency situation. (ANI)
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Harsh Vardhan visits Delhi’s GTB hospital to review dry run drill of COVID-19 vaccine
Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan arrived at Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) hospital on Saturday to review the dry run of administering the COVID-19 vaccine.
He appealed people to not pay attention to rumours regarding the covid vaccine. He further ensured the safety and efficacy of vaccine saying that it is “our priority.”
The dry run will be conducted by all the States and Union Territories governments from Saturday.
According to the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), the objective of the dry run for COVID-19 vaccine introduction is to “assess operational feasibility in the use of COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) application in a field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation”.
In Delhi, the drive is being conducted at three locations – the Daryaganj primary health centre, the government-run Guru Teg Bahadur hospital, and the private Venkateshwara hospital.
In Maharashtra, the dry run of administering the COVID19 vaccine will be conducted at District Hospital in Pune.
“Data of healthcare workers from Maharashtra has been uploaded on CoWIN,” said District Civil Surgeon.
The first round of the dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Punjab on 28-29 December 2020 in two districts each where five-session sites with 25 beneficiaries each were identified. No major issues were observed in the operational aspects during this dry run. All States expressed confidence in the operational guidelines and IT platform for large scale programme implementation.
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‘When will India get Covid-19 vaccine Health minister Harsh Vardhan reveals in a live session
In his weekly address Sunday Samvaad Union health minister Harsh Vardhan spoke about when the country is likely to get a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and who will be the first to get the shots against the viral infection. Earlier, Harsh Vardhan had said the first vaccine for COVID-19 is likely to be available in the first quarter of 2021. “Research to develop a vaccine is being done expeditiously. There are at least three such viable vaccine candidates that are in the phase of clinical trials right now in the country. We are hopeful that within first quarter of 2021 it will be available,” he had said. Covaxin, India’s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine is being developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) – National Institute of Virology (NIV).