Amaravati, Jan 10 (PTI) Andhra Pradesh government is ready to launch the coronavirus vaccination programme on January 16, starting with around 3.6 lakh health workers who will be inoculated in the first phase, a senoir health official said on Sunday.

The state machinery has successfully completed three dry runs of the vaccination programme so far and everything required for the actual drive has been put in place for a smooth run, Health Commissioner Katamaneni Bhaskar said.

In all, 1,940 sites will be used for the vaccination programme, of which 1,659 have cold chain points within premises. For the rest of the sites, the vaccine will be brought from the nearest cold chain point, Bhaskar said in a release.

He said 100 health workers would be vaccinated at each session site per day. Each site would be managed by a digital assistant, an ANM, an Anganwadi worker and one Asha worker.

In the first round only healthcare facilities would be used as session sites while private facilities with more than 100 health staff would also be used.

Police security would be posted at each session site, Bhaskar added.

According to the Health Commissioner, the state requires at least 10 crore doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to five crore people over a period of eight months.

Bhaskar said a total of 1,31,75,000 vials would be required till September 2021.

Each vial has 10 doses of the size of the Measles and Rubella vaccines and 25 per cent wastage was expected, he said.

"We plan to administer the coronavirus vaccine to five crore people, with two doses each. Except in May, the vaccination programme is scheduled to be taken up from January to September 2021 and arrangements have accordingly been made," the Health Commissioner said.

A State Vaccine Store was set up at Gannavaram near Vijayawada while four regional stores were opened in Kurnool, Kadapa, Guntur and Visakhapatnam apart from 13 district vaccine stores and 1,659 cold chain points in primary health centres across the state.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)