Kelzang Wangchuk | Samdrupjongkhar

Samdrupjongkhar received 24,000 doses of Covishield (AstraZeneca) vaccines yesterday.  The boxes of the vaccines were airborne to the dzongkhag.

Health officials will distribute the vaccines to the gewogs and drungkhags today.

The dzongkhag has about 71 vaccination places with 199 officials, including 52 vaccinators and 65 security personnel.

Health officials said about 23,241 people in the dzongkhag registered for the vaccine as of 12:20pm yesterday.

The deputy chief dzongkhag health officer (DHO), Pema Tshewang, said the dzongkhag has five clusters with doctors and dedicated vehicles and drivers to manage and monitor the adverse event following immunisation (AEFI) cases.

He said they have also informed gewog officials to keep the gewog vehicles ready if they need to transport additional vaccines. “We also carried out sensitisation and roll-out programme.”

Meanwhile, Pemagatshel also received 16,390 doses of Covishield vaccines, which were airborne to the dzongkhag yesterday.

About 16,686 people in the dzongkhag registered for the vaccine as of 1:30pm yesterday.

The dzongkhag has about 80 designated vaccination places with 167 officials, including 55 vaccinators and 56 security personnel.

Chief medical officer (CMO), Dr Bhim, said they had distributed vaccines to the eight gewogs in upper Pemagatshel yesterday and they would distribute vaccines to the three gewogs in Nganglam drungkhag today.

He said, since the dzongkhag has eight clusters with the four doctors to monitor the AEFI cases, four other doctors would reach the remaining clusters on March 25 or March 26.

“Of the 16,686 registered, about 18 people don’t want to get vaccinated because of an allergy to the vaccine, fair side effects and health conditions,” Dr Bhim said.