Prior approval mandatory for vaccine drive, 4-member expert panel to probe Kasba incident

Kolkata: Besides setting up a four-member expert committee to examine the effect of fake vaccination and taking necessary corrective measures, the state government made "prior approval" from the competent authority of the Health department mandatory to hold any vaccination camp under non-government initiatives.

The state Health and Family Welfare department on Saturday issued a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to run Covid Vaccination Centres (CVC), camps or outreach vaccination drives.

The move was taken after the vaccination scam came to light with the arrest of Debanjan Deb, who impersonated as an IAS officer, from Kasba.

Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi held a high-level meeting at Nabanna on Saturday morning in this connection and subsequent messages were sent to authorities of all 23 districts directing that all the CVCs either run by a government or by private hospitals should have valid permission. "They should be compulsorily using CoWin software for vaccination."

Directing to ensure strict vigilance to avoid a rerun of Kasba, the district authorities have also been directed to cross-check the batch numbers and date of expiry of vaccines. They were even advised to use eVin software for the same. They were also directed to convey the message to all health staff and civic bodies so that vaccination centres run by a government or private get duly authorised and are run as per protocol.

The SOP that the Health department has issued mentions that "all private commercial health facilities or workplace administration desiring to launch or run a CVC must seek prior approval from the competent authority of the health department". In districts, permission has to be taken from CMOH and ADHS (EPI) Swasthya Bhawan in Kolkata.

The application for the same has to be sought by providing details, including name, category of facility, address and contact number of the organisation along with the total number of people going to be vaccinated. 

They also have to provide details about the infrastructure available to carry out the inoculation drive. There also has to be a nodal officer who will be in constant touch with the Health department.

The SOP clearly mentions the role of CMOHs and CMHO in Kolkata, guidelines for outreach vaccination drives, post-vaccination care, coverage under each inoculation drive, monitoring and inspection, accountability of vaccine doses and norms related to permission.

All private CVCs have to maintain a dynamic inventory of vaccines disclosing the source of their supplies, cold chain maintenance mechanism, day-to-day consumption of doses and give a report to the Health department at day end on a regular basis. The nodal officers also have to submit a weekly report in this connection.

Representatives of the Health department will be inspecting such CVCs and permission will be revoked in case of "poor compliance" of the SOPs. Details of those getting (single and double dose) vaccinated have to be provided every week. The organisers also have to ensure proper post-vaccination care.

In case of outreach vaccination camps, private CVCs of one district will tie-up with a local private CVC or organisation to carry out the camp only after jointly submitting an application to CMOH mentioning location, date, time, source and type of vaccine. Permission from local police stations is also mandatory in such cases and approval letters from CMOH also have to be displayed. The CoWin authentication code number also has to be displayed and a performance report has to be submitted to the local health authority. The "competent health authority" will give permission only after properly assessing the application followed by a site visit.

The SOP has been prepared with suggestions of the four-member committee comprising Dr Santanu Tripathi of School of Tropical Medicine, Dr Jyotirmoy Pal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Dr Soumitra Ghosh and Dr GK Dhali of IPGMER. They are also examining the effects of fake vaccination and corrective actions to be taken in connection with the "recent incident".