Uttar Pradesh: To Avoid Vaccination, Villagers Jump Into River After Spotting Health Officials

While instances of vaccine hesitancy have been regularly reported from many parts of India, in a one-of-a-kind incident, a group of people in Uttar Pradesh’s Sisaurha village jumped into a river after sighting a group of healthcare workers, who had visited the village to carry out the Covid inoculation drive.

The villagers reportedly resorted to the extreme step after they were told that the vaccine was a “poisonous injection”.

According to sub-divisional magistrate (Ramnagar tehsil) Rajiv Kumar Shukla, the incident occurred on Saturday and the villagers jumped into the Saryu river.

Soon after, officials counselled the villagers and made them understand the importance of the vaccine, following which 18 people agreed to take the jabs, Shukla said.

Till Saturday, over 1.62 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccine had been administered in Uttar Pradesh, according to officials.

(With PTI inputs)