17.26 Core Jabs Administered to Elderly, Differently Abled Through NHCVCs Till Sept 27: Centre to SC
The Centre on Saturday told the Supreme Court that it has administered 17.26 crore vaccine doses till September 27 to the elderly and differently abled persons through its Near to Home COVID Vaccination Centres (NHCVC). A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna was told by the Centre thorough Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati that in May 2021 the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) constituted an expert panel to make recommendations on bringing COVID-19 vaccination nearer to homes of persons with disability and the elderly.
The Centre’s response came on a plea filed by NGO Evara Foundation seeking door-to-door Covid vaccinations for persons suffering with disability among other reliefs.
In an affidavit, the Centre further said that the expert committee recommended the strategy of the NHCVC to cater to special needs of the elderly and differently abled persons and the strategy was endorsed by the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC).
“It is further submitted that under NHCVC intervention, till September 27, 2021 around 17.26 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered. Thereby, this implies that a large number of people including persons with disabilities have already availed facility of vaccination using the services provided at various NHCVCs,” the affidavit said.
It said that these NHCVCs are organised specially for individuals above 60 years of age and individuals below 60 years with disability due to physical and medical conditions and they can either register themselves in advance via Co-WIN portal/app or by following facilitated Cohort Registration Process on Co-WIN or on-site registration.
The government said that for management of any Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI), an advanced life support/basic life support/transport vehicle is to be stationed at NHCVCs for transport to nearby AEFI management centre.
It said that advisories have also been issued to the State/Union Territory governments for providing further assistance to differently abled citizens like appointing a district level officer of disability/social welfare department as nodal officer for redressal of any grievance on real time basis.
It further said that 104 medical helplines have been set up to provide requisite information to differently abled persons to facilitate their proper care and vaccination.
The MoHFW said that despite all the efforts made, there may still be some persons who might be bed ridden or have extremely restricted mobility or disability or special needs that may hamper their accessibility even to NHCVCs.
“For such people, MoHFW has issued an advisory to all States/UTs on September 22 for preparing a line-list of all such potential beneficiaries and their caregivers in catchment areas of every planning unit and to collate this list at the district level. Subsequently, best efforts would be employed, on a case to case basis, considering the logistics and medical exigencies for facilitating vaccination of all such beneficiaries at their place of residence using Mobile Vaccination Teams,” it said.
The government also said that to improve access to the Co-WIN portal and mobile application for visually impaired several steps have been taken like feature for text Captcha has been removed, text resizing options have been included on the Co-WIN pages.
On September 20, the top court had sought response from Centre on the plea and sought assistance of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta in the matter.
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