THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state health department has issued a circular to district
medical officers asking to complete the first
dose of Covid-19
vaccination for
healthcare workers (
HCW) by February 5.
When the nation-wide
vaccination drive started on January 16, the state had planned to wrap up the first doses by the second week of February and begin the second doses by February 14.
Now with the change in plan, most of the districts are in a race against time as they haven’t yet achieved half of the target.
Ernakulam district had registered 69,761 HCWs for the vaccination, the highest in the state, but has only covered 9,287. The remaining 60,474 HCWs will have to be vaccinated in 637 sessions at a rate of 71 sessions per day. Similarly, in
Thiruvananthapuram, only 8,805 of the 52,995 registered HCWs have been vaccinated. The capital district has to move at 52 sessions per day to reach the revised target that will require 466 sessions.
As per the health department’s detailed plan, all HCWs in Kasaragod will be vaccinated by January 29, while Idukki is expected to complete the process by February 1 and Wayanad by February 2. The districtwise figures for the target to be achieved against the current status is, Alappuzha 22,701 (6,880), 29,762 (7,000), Kollam 23,019 (7,006), Kottayam 28,855 (6,685), Kozhikode 36,982 (7,070), Malappuram 27,444 (5,342), Palakkad 27,135 (7,710), Pathanamthitta 20,822 (7,571) and Thrissur 41,316 (9,856).
By comparison, Idukki, Kasaragod, and Wayanad have less than 12,000 registered for the vaccination. In Wayanad, 4,288 of the 11,193 registered HCWs have been vaccinated while the numbers in Idukki and Kasaragod are 9,421 (4,747) and 7,317 (3,859) respectively. Meanwhile, the Qualified Private Medical Practitioners’ Association has alleged that the vaccination of HCWs in the private sector is less than 10-15%.