Pune: Mobile vaccine teams reach out to care homes, offices

PUNE: While the state government is examining how to vaccinate the bedridden at their homes on an experimental basis, health staff in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad have already started reaching out to those who are unable to travel to vaccination sites.
On Wednesday, state authorities told the Bombay high court that it would start trials for home vaccination of the bedridden, from Pune district. Officials here said mobile teams have already reached out to scores of people living in care homes and assisted-living centres.
In Pune city, the teams have vaccinated 4,544 people living a dependent or neardependent life at 53 care homes over the last month, including Nivara, Palash, Savali, Umed, Kalpavruksha, Spandan, Pratiti and Devataru. In Pimpri Chinchwad, 100 bedridden citizens have received their shots in special drives that started on June 1.
Mobile vaccine teams reach out to care homes, offices
Free vaccine drives are also being conducted at government offices, non-governmental organizations and for those in the unorganized sector — vegetable vendors, shopkeepers and daily wage workers who are also part of the potential “superspreader” category of beneficiaries “So far, we have vaccinated 25,000 people living and working at various government and non-government units. We aim to reach out to another 50,000 more in the coming days, including a large chunk of potential superspreaders,” said Vaishali Jadhav, PMC’s Covid vaccination chief. A PCMC official said, “We have developed the ‘mi jababdar’ (I’m responsible) mobile app for citizens who wish to sign up a person with special needs for vaccination. We contact these people accordingly.”
Among prominent government departments that had free vaccine drives on their premises are the income-tax department, meteorological office, MahaMetro, NDA, DRDO, MSEDCL, BSNL, C-DAC, Pune airport, the groundwater and forests department and the region’s food corporation.
Officials from the PMC said they plan to cover another 70 government offices within the next few days.
As for NGOs, groups such as the Hamal Panchayat and some organisations working in Pune’s red-light areas have also been covered.
The special drives have included professions in which people come in contact with a large number of people — traders, their staff, vegetable vendors, fuel pump attendants, couriers and food-delivery agents.
“To make the Covid-19 vaccination campaign more effective, it was decided to inoculate superspreaders by running special programmes to reduce risk of infection as they come in contact with many people daily due to the nature of their job,” Jadhav said.