PATNA: The
employees of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) will be roped in to mobilize and bring the beneficiaries to the session sites in order to increase the pace of the second dose of Covid-19
vaccination in the state. On Saturday, 1,600 healthcare workers across the state took the second dose. So far 35,019 have got the second dose in the state.
Principal secretary (health) Pratyaya Amrit and other senior department officials also took their second dose on Saturday.
Health department special secretary Manoj Kumar said ICDS employees will work from Monday to mobilize the beneficiaries. Amrit said principal secretaries of the departments concerned have been requested and nodal officers were working to increase the vaccination of frontline workers. “They are all helping us,” he said. Nearly 78% of the targeted beneficiaries took their second dose on Friday, he added.
The officials also cited technical glitches with the portal as one of the reasons for less number of beneficiaries taking the second shot, compared to the first dose. This problem has been reported to the Centre, they said.
As per the information shared by the State Health Society, total 5,15,280 beneficiaries have taken their first shot since the launch of
vaccination drive on January 16. They include 3,97,491 healthcare workers and 1,17,789 frontline workers. The second dose is being given in state from February 15 after four weeks of the first shot.
Meanwhile, 57
new Covid-19 cases were registered in the state. Patna registered new cases in single digit after a long time. Only seven people tested positive for Covid-19 in the district in the last 24 hours.
Though the state’s tally reached 2,62,066, there were only 500 active cases in Bihar. One official death was reported from Patna, taking the state’s toll to 437. AIIMS-Patna reported the death of a 27-year-old male.