AIIMS seeks list of students for Covid vaccine administration

New Delhi, Dec 19 (IANS) The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Friday sought a list of MBBS students, nursing students and fellows, from its various departments, who will be administered the Covid vaccines on priority basis in the first phase of the vaccination drive.

The list was sought as the Union Health Ministry is preparing a database of healthcare workers and other workers in healthcare settings who will be receiving the vaccine shot after its rollout.

The Central government plans to vaccinate nearly 30 crore people in the first phase of drive. It will be offered to one crore healthcare workers, along with two crore frontline and essential workers and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 years with comorbidities.

The ministry has asked states and union territories to upload data of healthcare workers on its digital application - Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network (COVIN).

In a notice, AIIMS Registrar Sanjay Lalwani asked the chief of centres, head of departments, principal college of nursing and hostel superintendent to the send the copy of identity cards (IDs) and its numbers in excel sheet latest by December 19.

The AIIMS administration has also sought IDs of senior residents, junior residents, fellows, MBBS students, paramedical students, B.Sc. (Hons.) nursing students and B.Sc Nursing working or studying under their supervision "for onward transmission to the computer facility for receiving the Covid-19 vaccine."

India has eight Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including three indigenous vaccines, under different stages of clinical trials which could be ready for authorization in near future.

It includes Oxford university developed AstraZeneca, Serum Institute of India manufactured Covishield, Covaxin by Bharat Biotech Limited, ZyCoV-D by Zydus Cadila and Russian vaccine candidate Sputnik-V.

The list also contains NVX-CoV2373 by SII, HGCO19 by Geneva, and two unlabeled vaccines-Recombinant Protein Antigen based vaccine by Biological E Limited-and Inactivated rabies vector platform by Bharat Biotech.

--IANS

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