PRAYAGRAJ: Joint teams of health, administration, and education department are holding interactive sessions with rural residents to address their reservations against vaccination at the village and block level.
This is being done to speed up vaccination and facilitate the cluster plan which aims to reach out to each and every recipient in villages, blocks and slums of Prayagraj district from July 1.
Although the turnout of people during the start of the Near Home Vaccination drive was poor, subsequent interactive sessions, meant to clear the doubts of rural residents with regard to vaccination, yielded fruitful results.
As of now, around 75 per cent eligible recipients are turning up at special vaccination centres set up at primary schools, gram sabha bhawans and panchayat bhawans in 92 villages of six blocks of the district.
Joint teams of ASHA/ANM workers, anganwadi workers, teachers, kotedars, panchayat secretaries, teachers and pradhans are visiting the doorsteps of rural recipients and briefing them about the importance of Covid vaccination.
Additional chief medical officer and district immunization officer (DIO), Dr Teerath Lal, told TOI, “We are trying our best to encourage the rural population to get vaccinated against the deadly virus.
There was hesitancy among villagers initially, but now around 75 per cent of recipients are arriving at vaccination centres to receive the jab.” Data also claimed that on the first day of the launch of Near Home Vaccination (June 21), the number of recipients was 3,214 against the set target of 9,200.
However, it later increased to 5,729 and 6,945 on second and third days respectively.
Officials of the district health department have set a target of administering around 39.87 lakh beneficiaries, including 27 lakh recipients aged between 18 and 44 years, and 12.87 lakh aged above 45 years.
The Covid vaccination drive has undoubtedly gathered pace in the Sangam city.
As many as 7,81,324 jabs have already been inoculated to recipients of all age groups till June 23.
While 6,52,032 beneficiaries have taken the first dose of vaccine, a total of 1,29,292 recipients have also received the second dose.
Officials said the vaccination exercise is currently going on at 90 sites across the district.
The ACMO, meanwhile, admitted that the special pink booth for women and the abhibhavak special booth have failed to yield desired results.
He, however, said, “On an average, we are covering 15,000-16,000 beneficiaries of all age groups in a single day, and efforts are underway to cover more crowd.” “A total of 16,465 vaccine shots were administered to recipients of all age groups in the past 24 hours, which included 15,977 recipients of the first dose and 488 of the second dose,” said the ACMO, adding, “More and more people are getting themselves registered on the health department portal for vaccination.”