Health ministry to arrange special training for corona vaccination staff

ISLAMABAD: Federal health authorities have decided to train special staff for the COVID-19 vaccination in the country, quoting sources ARY News reported on Sunday.

The health ministry will prepare specially trained staff in collaboration with the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) and the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA), sources said.

The experts from the EPI and NADRA will train the staff for corona vaccination and the Record Management System, according to sources.

The especially trained staff for corona vaccination drive will administer vaccine shots to front-line health workers.

Countrywide training sessions for the corona vaccination staff will begin from January 04 to 15. The provincial master trainers will be trained from 04 to 11 January, sources said.

The master trainers for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan will be trained at Islamabad. The training of master trainers will be held at the provincial offices of the EPI, according to sources.

The master trainers will conduct training sessions at district and tehsil level in provinces from January 11-15.

The Expanded Programme on Immunisation will conduct the corona vaccination drive and will assist the health department in the first phase of vaccination, the sources added.

It is to be mentioned here that the health department Sindh on Friday notified the Provincial Vaccine Administration Coordination Cell (PVACC) after getting a commitment from the National Vaccine Task Force and the National Command Operation Centre (NCOC) for supply of the Covid-19 vaccine by Jan 15.

Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho stated that the NCOC and the National Vaccine Task Force had committed to supply the province with 250,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses by mid-January and each recipient would get two doses with a gap of 21 days.

In the first phase, healthcare providers performing duties in the Covid wards and other front-line workers engaged in handling coronavirus patients would be administered the vaccine, she informed officials.