Tepid response to vaccination drive

CHANDIGARH: The response to the Covid-19 vaccination drive in Punjab remains below the desired level with only 38% of the targeted health workers getting the shot on Thursday.

On Thursday, 4,852 health workers of from government and private sector were inoculated the Covishield vaccine at 134 locations in Punjab. This is the highest per day total, till now. “The vaccination drive is gradually picking pace as the private sector health workers are showing more enthusiasm in getting the jabs,” said Punjab Covid-19 nodal officer Dr Rajesh Bhaskar. During previous sessions of the drive, 1,327 health workers turned up on Saturday, 1,992 on Monday, 2,249 on Tuesday and 2,003 on and Wednesday. Punjab is among the states that received lukewarm response to the drive on the day of its roll out.

The health officials had attributed hesitancy among government sector health workers as one of the reasons for it. During Thursday’s vaccination drive at 134 sites in Punjab, Ferozepur, Barnala, Fatehgarh Sahibs and Fazilka districts turned out to be poor performers with the coverage ranging from 7%to 11% , as per the data. Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Hoshiarpur saw maximum workers getting the shots.

Increase number of sites: Minister to civil surgeons

Punjab health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Thursday instructed civil surgeons to increase the number of sites as well as beneficiaries to accelerate the vaccination drive. Presiding over a review meeting, Sidhu said the government had already increased the vaccination sites from 59 to 134 to ensure maximum coverage of government and private health care providers. “A new feature has been added in the vaccinator module to add additional beneficiaries in an ongoing session to facilitate maximum use of staff deployed at session sites. Earlier, only those additional beneficiaries could be added whose names already existed in the database generated by CoWIN portal for asession,” he said. Principal secretary, health, Hussan Lal instructed civil surgeons to personally review the drive daily.