SHILLONG, May 30: The Meghalaya government will open the slot in CoWIN for vaccination of people above 18 years by next week.
A Health Department official said the vaccines are expected to reach Meghalaya by June 10. “So, the slots will be opened next week,” he said.
State Immunisation Officer (SIO), P. Manners said the vaccination of the 45-plus group will be made through the stock allocated by the Centre while that for the 18-44 age group will be managed through the state procurement.
“We expect to receive a fresh stock of the Covishield vaccine next month. We have already received a letter from the ministry in this connection,” Dr Manners said.
The recent opening of a slot on CoWIN website from May 24-30 evoked a huge response from the people aged 18-44 years and a large number of people in this group turned up for vaccination at different sites.
In the last two days, more than 4,500 citizens in this group got vaccinated.
On Sunday, there were quite a few people who had logged into the CoWIN website hoping that the government would once again open the slot.
The response from the people above 45 years of age for vaccination has not been very impressive in the state so far. The government has thus sought the cooperation of religious leaders and Rangbah Shnongs to motivate the people to come for vaccination that can protect them from the deadly virus.
Meanwhile, the Health Department has been collecting the names of the people without identification documents for the COVID-19 vaccination.
A special session for people without ID cards such as prison and old age home inmates, beggars, people in mental healthcare and rehabilitation centres is likely to be held from next week.
Dr Manners said they have asked all the districts to collect the names of the people without identification documents. She also said they have sought the names of the designated officers in MIMHANS, SANKER Rehabilitation Centre, old age homes and the prisons.
According to her, these designated officers will have to verify the people without IDs once they arrange the vaccination session for them.
She said there will be a spot registration of all these people.
“We could not initiate the vaccination for this group since the CoWIN system was not accepting. The Union ministry issued the guidelines to vaccinate people without IDs after all the states had flagged this issue,” Dr Manners said, adding that none from these groups have been vaccinated so far.
