Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has decided to vaccinate all Nepali nationals working in the state, even if they don’t have the required ID proof.
Following the recommendations of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 (NEGVAC), the Health and Family Welfare, Additional Chief Secretary, PK Mohapatra has asked all collectors, municipal commissioners and CDMOs to vaccinate such persons. This will be done to prevent the third wave of Covid-19 in the state.
The Nepali nationals, who are working as labourer and workers may not have any prescribed ID card for registration on the CoWIN portal. Therefore, the government has decided to vaccinate the Nepalis in accordance with the SOP prepared for vaccination of persons without prescribed identify cards.
The concerned officials have been directed to include such persons in the ongoing vaccination drives and to prepare the list accordingly.
Earlier, the government had directed all the district administrations to vaccinate vulnerable people including nomads, sadhus, beggars, senior citizens and inmates of mental health institutions even if they did not have proper ID proof.
The government Wednesday administered 3,24,947 doses of Covid-19 vaccines at 1,598 centres. So far, over 1.06 crore doses of the vaccines have been administered to people in Odisha. The government will conduct 1,194 vaccination sessions Thursday. Odisha currently has 3,59,340 doses of Covishield and 5,24,360 doses of Covaxin available, officials said.
