Five districts record 100% boosters coverage for eligible senior citizens
Health department data shows coverage in districts such as Gadchiroli, Washim, Buldhana is very low
MUMBAI: Five districts in Maharashtra - Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, Raigad and Jalgaon have given the booster dose to over 100% of its eligible senior citizens as of Saturday.
Data from the state’s public health department shows that of the 21,36,638 people in the 60 plus category who became eligible for the third dose up to May 12, a total of 15,26,933 or 71.46% have taken the jabs so far. However, a huge disparity remains in the coverage in districts like Gadchiroli, Washim, Buldhana and others where the uptake of boosters is very low.
While the statistics as far as the state’s senior citizen booster coverage looks positive, HT could not independently verify this data. The reason being the state provides cumulative vaccination data for all age groups above 45 years, thus the separate numbers for the 60 plus population were unavailable. However, a discrepancy was evident in the Mumbai data provided by the state. According to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, Mumbai administered the second dose to 649107 senior citizens 39 weeks ago on August 11, 2021. However, the state government datasheet had considered only 316732 senior citizens as the eligible population on May 12.
State officials said an estimated 10% of Maharashtra’s population are senior citizens. “But in the case of boosters, the eligible population is different than the target population as every day a new set of senior citizens completes their 39-day gap and become eligible for the third dose,” said state’s immunisation officer Dr Sachin Desai.
Almost 26 districts are currently below the state’s average in the coverage of boosters among the eligible population of senior citizens. Only nine districts have coverage above the state’s average. Some of the lowest scoring districts include Washim where 35,738 senior citizens were eligible as of Saturday, but a mere 6,539 or 18.29% had taken the shot.
In Gadchiroli, 9,426 senior citizens were eligible for the booster but only 2,025 or 21.48% had taken the shot. Similarly, Buldhana had 58,314 eligible senior citizens for the booster but only 14,063 or 24.12% had taken them. Other districts like Nanded (27.64%), Gondia (29.21%), Prabhani (30%), Hingoli (32.55%), Wardha (39.59%) etc were among those struggling to motivate the senior citizens to come forward for the third shot.