NOIDA/GHAZIABAD: Uttar Pradesh has a tough task at hand.
The state, which has set a target of vaccinating its entire 20 crore population (2011 census), has managed to inoculate only 2.2 crore recipients so far.
Marred by a shortage of vaccines for some time, the pace of inoculations has picked up in June.
Under “Mission June” — a campaign to vaccinate 1 crore people in 30 days — the average daily figure stood at 4.1 lakh on Thursday.
‘Remove bottlenecks’According to epidemiologists and health experts, assuming enough vaccines doses are available, the state can achieve its December target only if it undertakes a mass-scale drive on the lines of TB or polio vaccinations.
They suggest that the government should go to the people instead of recipients coming to vaccination centres.
Offsite camps in schools and markets and even door-to-door drives should be organised, they say.
“Expecting people to come to a centre after registration requires a high level of awareness.
We need to map all the eligible people and have strong social mobilisation campaigns.
These campaigns will help many population groups that may have doubts,” says Giridhara R Babu, professor and head of lifecourse epidemiology at Public Health Foundation of India, Bengaluru.
Dr Chand Wattal, chairperson of clinical microbiology and immunology at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi agrees.
Wattal feels that for the vaccination drive to be successful, the existing bottlenecks should be removed at the earliest.
“There are several issues with the registration process through the CoWin portal.
This should be made more flexible.
There is a need for more 24×7 centres and walk-ins should be allowed without any technical registration,” he says.
Camps in societiesResident welfare associations across Delhi-NCR have appealed to their respective administrations to organise vaccine camps in housing societies.
The Federation of Noida Residents Welfare Associations (FONRWA) — an umbrella organisation of 180 RWAs — has said such camps would be beneficial especially for the economically weaker sections working in the housing societies, such as guards, domestic staffers, sweepers, sanitation workers, etc.
“We have asked for free vaccine camps, like the ones done for testing.
This way, a majority of people in the district can be given the shot before the third wave,” says KK Jain, secretary-general of FONRWA.
The sheer number, say RWAs, is posing a challenge to private vaccination programmes.
In Noida, for instance, there are some sectors that have more than 45 societies.
The unavailability of slots is also a cause for concern.
‘No age-wise categories’Ghaziabad and Noida say they will ramp up the number of daily vaccinations.
“We have been administering 12,000-13,000 vaccines a day.
The central government will start providing vaccines to states from June 21.
Once that is done, there will be no need to segregate people in terms of age,” says NK Gupta, the chief medical officer of Ghaziabad.
“At present, one team is vaccinating around 50 people a day.
Without age-based segregation, our teams will have the capacity to vaccinate 200-250 people.” Noida district magistrate Suhas LY says the idea is to reach out to more people.
“We have been vaccinating an average of 12,000 people a day.
Besides, a similar number is being covered by the private establishments.
With the state allowing camps for more categories, we will be going all out to increase the drive and reach closer home to people,” he adds.
Simultaneously, the administration in both districts have started targetted vaccination drives.
Both Noida and Ghaziabad have had vaccination camps for the elderly, government employees, transgenders, differently-abled, women, bank and insurance staff, and parents of children less than 12 years of age.