In one of its kind initiatives, SAS Nagar (Mohali) District Administration is to commence home-vaccination for the old, infirm, disabled, and differently-abled persons making it the first district in the country to start need based door-to-door vaccination.

Sub-division wise ambulances with vaccination teams are being deployed for taking the jabs to the doorsteps, informed Mohali Deputy Commissioner Girish Dayalan on Monday.

“To avail the home vaccination facility, registration has to be done by filling the details of persons to be inoculated and their addresses in a google-sheet. But, it is mandatory that at a given point of time, there are at least a group of 10 people in the area who are to be vaccinated against COVID-19,” informed Dayalan.

The pre-condition of minimum 10 people has been set to avoid vaccine wastage since per vial, 10 doses of vaccine are available; and once open, it cannot be preserved for later use, the Deputy Commissioner clarified.

Similarly, the home vaccination facility is also being extended to women and can be done for a group 10 beneficiaries, if all are women.

“Though our top priority is elderly and disabled, but for the ease of people, if a Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA) seeks home-vaccination but does not have sufficient number of senior citizens, it will be provided the service on the condition that at least half of the total number of people to be vaccinated are aged (60 plus), disabled, or differently-abled, and the remaining can be anyone over 18 years of age,” he added.

Door- to-door or home vaccination facility is also being extended to organizations, associations, NGOs, RWAs, or volunteers willing to facilitate vaccination if they want to vaccinate over 30 persons at a given point of time in a given place, even if they are not aged or infirm. So, the minimum number of persons to be available at one site for home vaccination is 30.

The number of people to be vaccinated, locality, and the contact person’s number has to be filled for registration and the team vaccination team will reach in their vicinity within 24 to 48 hours and will wait for 30 minutes after vaccination to observe adverse event following immunization (AEFI), if any.

Each recipient needs to fill his name, date of birth (DoB), ID type or number in a Performa at the time of vaccination so they should keep the relevant data handy in order to save time, said Dayalan.