As many as 1,62,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine reached Jharkhand on Wednesday in 16,200 vials to kick-start the first phase of the vaccination programme against the coronavirus in the state on January 16, the National Health Mission (NHM) stated.

As per details shared by the NHM, each vial contains 5 ml of vaccine and can provide shots of 0.5 ml to as many as 10 individuals. The vaccine will be distributed to the various vaccination centres across the 24 districts by Thursday, January 14, health officials said.

State health minister Banna Gupta requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide the vaccine free of cost to all Jharkhand residents. “The BJP had promised free vaccination to residents of Bihar before the elections there. I would request the Prime Minister to provide free vaccination to all residents of our state as Jharkhand is a poor, backward and tribal dominated state,” Gupta said.

The minister said that the vaccine was free for all the frontline workers in Jharkhand, but there was a need to make it free for all the 3.29 crore residents of the state. The state, he said, was expecting to get the second lot of vaccine doses within the next 15 to 20 days in a bid to ensure that the second shot of the vaccine is provided to residents in the stipulated gap of 28 days.

Sadar Hospital in Ranchi, the largest vaccination centre in the state capital, received at least 1,897 vials of Covishield. Hospital authorities said that necessary arrangements had been made to ensure uninterrupted power supply in order to keep the vaccine in the desired temperature of 2 to 8 degree Celsius.

Power generators have been installed in the hospital to maintain optimum temperature for the vaccine in case of a power failure.

Kareena Hembrom, a nurse at Sadar Hospital in Ranchi, said she was proud of being a frontline worker throughout the Covid-19-induced crisis period and was happy to get the vaccine shots in the first phase. “All of us have battled the virus together and the vaccine comes as a huge relief,” she said.

For storage of the vaccine, Jharkhand already has 275 cold chain points and has proposed an additional 30 to enhance the storage capacity in the state, officials from NHM said. As per health department sources Jharkhand has five walk-in coolers and four more are being procured. The state also has three walk-in freezers and two more will be procured soon. Besides, there are 5,505 cold boxes and 41,979 vaccine carriers available.

On Day One of the vaccination, Covishield shots will be administered to health workers at 129 centres across the 24 districts in Jharkhand, health officials said. The vaccine, health officials said, will generate protective levels of antibodies in the body in two weeks after the second dose. NHM further stated that people would have to continue taking precautionary measures against the virus even after getting the vaccine shots.

The health department had earlier stated that a photo identity proof will be a must for any person to get Covid-19 vaccine shots. Voter ID cards, school certificates, MGNREGA job cards, PAN cards and passports are some of the documents that can be used to register for the vaccination. Also, the person getting vaccinated has to produce his photo identity proof at the vaccination centre, failing which he will not be administered the vaccine shot.