Final mop-up vaccination round records low turnout in Ghaziabad
GHAZIABAD: The final mop-up round of vaccination against Covid-19 for health-care workers (HCWS) and front-line workers (FLWS) ended Thursday with overall coverage of about 74.77% HCWS and 54.28% FLWS in Ghaziabad. Officials of the district health department said Thursday was the last day of vaccination for both categories of beneficiaries.
About 17,763 of the 23,754 identified HCWS took their first dose of the vaccine on Thursday, while 10,236 of the 18,857 FLWS identified took the first shot.
Health department officials said that the coverage for HCWS was much better than that of FLWS, as staff of several departments did not actively participate in vaccination.
“Thursday was the last chance for both HCWS and FLWS to get their first dose of the vaccine. For the mop-up round, 1,183 FLWS and 122 HCWS turned up. On Thursday, we also conducted the second round of vaccination for HCWS, and 3,650 of 4,095 listed workers turned up to take the second dose. The coverage for the second dose was 89.13% on Thursday,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer, Ghaziabad.
He said that another round for the second dose for HCWS will be conducted on Friday.
“Our overall coverage of HCWS has been high but for the FLWS, it has been comparatively low. This is because staff from many departments did not turn up despite having being given the last chance, on Thursday. Now, the remaining beneficiaries will get their chance only
when directions are received from the government. On our part, we repeatedly told departments to create awareness and participate in the vaccination drive,” Dr Gupta added.
Uttar Pradesh health department officials said that Thursday was the last chance for FLWS and HCWS to get their first dose of the vaccine and the remaining ones will get the next chance only under the age-appropriate category under the third category of beneficiaries.
“We will be starting administering the shots to the third category of beneficiaries. This will cover beneficiaries who are more than 50 years of age; of these, people who are aged over 60 years will get the shots first. Those having co-morbidities and aged 45-60 years will also get the shots under the third category,” said Amit Mohan Prasad, UP’S additional chief secretary (health).
He said that in order to check any rise in infection, they are
resorting to focussed testing in different areas in order to identify and isolate ‘super-spreaders’.
“We conducted a similar focussed testing from February 10 to 20 in various colleges across the state and about three lakh samples were taken. Of these, only 300 tested positive. So, the rate of infection is still low in the state and we will continue to conduct focussed testing often in order to identify and isolate specific groups of superspreaders,” he added.
2,880 people vaccinated in GB Nagar
Gautam Budh Nagar on Thursday vaccinated 2,880 people of the 3,676 HCWS and FLWS scheduled to get their shot.
Dr Neeraj Tyagi, district immunisation officer, said, “We had also planned to give the second vaccine dose to 3,011 people, but only 2,591 turned up. Also, 192 FLWS and 97 HCWS received their first shot at 26 sites till 6.30 pm.”
The district health department has registered 26,098 HCWS and 18762 FLWS for vaccination in the first and second round. Around 6,000 FLWS and 8,000 HCWS were yet to be vaccinated, as per the administration’s record.
Dr NK Gupta, the president of Ima-noida, said that the low turnout could be due to misinformation and rumours on social media. “There were unconfirmed reports from foreign countries about the vaccine’s side effects. This led to low registration of FLWS and HCWS at local level and many of those who did register, did not turn up,” he said, adding that the administration should work harder in spreading awareness.
Tyagi attributed the low turnout to transfer of workers.
Last week, GB Nagar district magistrate Suhas LY, police commissioner Alok Singh, additional police commissioner Love Kumar, and Greater Noida authority chief executive officer Narendra Bhooshan got vaccinated.
The GB Nagar administration is preparing a list of beneficiaries for the third phase of Covid-19 vaccinations.
The third phase will administer the first dose for people over 50 years or those suffering from comorbidities. Gautam Budh Nagar has identified over 424,500 such people.