Covaxin rollout from three Kolkata sites today – Times of India

KOLKATA: The rollout of Covaxin is all set to begin in Bengal from three vaccination sites in Kolkata on Wednesday. The state health department has already drafted the SOP (standard operating procedure) for smooth implementation of inoculating recipients with this indigenous vaccine, which will be administered on “clinical trial mode”.
Officials of IPGMER, Medical College Hospital Kolkata and RG Kar Medical College, from where the roll-out is set to begin, have received the SOP on Tuesday. According to sources, the second consignment of 3.5 lakh Covaxin doses will also arrive from Hyderabad on Wednesday.
“Covaxin will be rolled out from Wednesday,” said state director, health services, Ajay Chakraborty.
Experts said since Covaxin rollout is characteristically different from that of Covishield, as the former would be implemented under clinical trial mode, a separate SOP was prepared.
The vaccination sites will also be different from the existing Covishield vaccination sites. The state health department has trained separate sets of personnel for special requirements of the Covaxin vaccination sites.
“We will have one separate site and an exclusive team from where Covaxin will be administered,” said a source at IPGMER (SSKM).
Two institutes – NICED (National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases) on behalf of ICMR and Bharat Biotech – are also ready with their representatives for the active safety surveillance of recipients post vaccination.
“We have designated a nodal officer, who along with three personnel from our end, will be in touch with the recipients to check on adverse events if any post the vaccination,” said NICED director Shanta Dutta.
“This indigenously developed vaccine with technical support from ICMR employed the time-tested whole-virion inactivated vero-cell derived platform technology, and therefore it is highly likely to be safer and optimally effective. Safety of the vaccine has been sufficiently studied in the Phase-I and Phase-II clinical trials. Even in the current ongoing Phase-III trial, the immediate and early safety evaluation has been duly completed as all the trial participants have already received both doses, and no safety concern has been noted,” said Santanu Tripathi, expert clinical pharmacologist and vaccinology advisor to West Bengal government.
According to the SoP, like Covishield, the Covaxin site will have four key persons – vaccinator officers – V1, V2, V3 and V4 along with a medical supervisor. While task of the V1, V3 and V4 remain more or less the same, the V2 has an elaborate role of deciding if the potential recipient is eligible following Covaxin’s inclusion-exclusion criteria.