PANAJI: Citizens in the age group 18-44 who have been waiting to get inoculated, will able to walk into around 200 vaccination centres on Sunday to get their first jabs between 9am to 5pm, state immunisation officer Dr Rajendra Borkar said.
The vaccination sites for Tika Utsav 3.0 include the permanent vaccination centres, panchayats and other centres.
Health officials expect that there won’t be a mad rush as the government rolled out vaccination for 18-44-year olds in a staggered manner beginning with lactating mothers, parents, those with comorbidities and other priority groups of seafarers, auto rickshaw, motorcycle and taxi drivers.
Borkar said vaccination centres don’t have a limit for the day and can vaccinate according to their capacity.
“They will inform people in the beginning itself how many persons they will be able to vaccinate,” he said.
A vaccination site with a single vaccinator can immunise up to 200 beneficiaries a day, although 100 are recommended to avoid fatigue.
Several sites have more than one vaccinator and are gearing up for Sunday.
However, centres have to also take into consideration the space available in the observation area where beneficiaries are made to wait for half an hour after vaccination.
Should there be a low turnout of less than 100 persons at certain vaccination centres, the government will consider merging the centres after some days to avoid wastage of resources, including vaccines.
Centres have also been told to reduce wastage of vaccines and are referring persons to other neighbouring centres where the last vial for the day has already been opened up.
A vial once opened must be discarded within four hours.