UDUPI: The district achieved 48% success in the ongoing vaccination drive against Covid-19 on Thursday.
On the sixth day of the drive, 720 out of 1,500 registered frontline health workers took the vaccine.
The health authorities had initially planned for 13sessions that would have covered 1300 beneficiaries for the day. Cumulatively, the district's achievement is 69.2% with 2159 out of 3118 beneficiaries receiving the vaccine.
District health and family welfare officer Dr Sudhir Chandra Sooda told TOI that reluctance among anganwadi and ASHA workers to take the vaccine is slowing down the efforts to vaccinate the frontline workers.
"We are seeing more refusals among anganwadi and ASHA workers to take the vaccine," he said.
The news about a few frontline workers who died after receiving the vaccine could be naturally playing up on their minds, he averred.
While the response to the vaccination drive has been good in Kundapur taluk, it has been a tad disappointing in Karkala taluk, the DHO said.
The health authorities have taken all steps to allay fears in the minds of the health workers, Dr Sooda said, hoping the drive will gather steam in the days ahead.
In a related development, the district health authorities on Tuesday received 11,900 doses of Covishield vaccine to go with 12,000 doses received earlier.
As part of micromanagement vaccination programme adopted on election mode, the drive will be held in 115 centres across Udupi including 74 government facilities.
In all, 258 sessions have been planned and 154 of them will be in private health institutions.
The hHealth department has distributed AEFI kits to all places where the vaccination sessions will be held.
On Friday, authorities have planned 57 sessions to cover 5002 beneficiaries.