Health Secretary flags concerns regarding slow pace of Covid-19 vaccination across States, UTs
New Delhi [India], May 20: The Union Health Ministry has flagged concerns regarding the considerably slow pace of Covid-19 vaccination drive across states and union territories, and urged them to significantly expedite the pace towards full vaccination coverage by saturating all eligible beneficiaries.
This was communicated to all States and UTs by Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan as he reviewed the status of Covid vaccination with Health Secretaries and NHM MDs of States and UTs, through a video conference today.
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Highlighting the urgent need for an intensive 'Mission Mode' push to Covid-19 vaccination across the country to accelerate the recent placid momentum, Union Health Secretary has advised them to plan for a two-month long "Har GharDastak" campaign 2.0, during June-July, with detailed district, block and village levels plans.
The objective of the 'Har GharDastak 2.0' Abhiyan is to vaccinate and saturate the eligible population groups for first, second and precaution doses through door-to-door campaigns, with focussed campaigns for old age homes, schools or colleges including the out-of-school children (for focussed coverage of children aged 12-18 years population), prisons, brick kilns, etc, according to the ministry.
The Health Secretary stressed a clear and effective communication strategy for increasing the pace of the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination, noting that customised regional communication best practices have yielded appreciable results in India's highly commendable Covid-19 coverage of over 191 crore doses.
During the meeting, focus on regional influencers, community leaders, innovative campaigns, etc was highlighted.
Underscoring that Covid-19 vaccine is a precious national resource, they were strongly advised to ensure that there is no wastage of Covid-19 vaccines at any cost. This must be ensured through active monitoring and on basis of "First Expiry First Out" principle, where doses that expire earlier should be used for vaccination first.
Pointing out that supply of vaccine doses has been made to States or UTs as per their demand since December 2021, they were advised to first use the unused balance doses over the coming months of May, June and July.
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It was pointed out that in some states, persons who wish to travel abroad and seek to take a precaution dose within 90 days of the second dose, are being asked to furnish proof of the intended foreign journey.
-PTC News
