71% health workers in J’khand fully vaccinated in last 6 mnths

Ranchi: As nationwide vaccination drive against Covid-19 is set to complete six months on Friday, the state government looks back on the many highs and lows, including overcoming vaccine hesitancy to facing supply gaps in doses, during the first ever adult immunization drive.
Talking to TOI, the nodal officer for vaccination drive in Jharkhand, Dr Ajit Prasad, said, “It has been a challenging job as we increased the number of sessions sites from a few dozen to over 3,000 session sites to operate daily. Apart from that, we got the much needed boost in our coverage by extending the drive to panchayat-level and special weekend drives which saw around one lakh people being vaccinated in a single day.”
Asked about the challenges, Dr Prasad said: “Initially we faced vaccine hesitancy, however, IEC, door to door survey as well as awareness programs helped us in overcoming that and now we end up exhausting our doses before even it is replenished.”
As per health department records, Jharkhand has been able to completely inoculate around 13,50,465 beneficiaries, out of around 2.47 crore targeted beneficiaries. A total of 64,89,159 have received their first doses till July 13.
Out of the targeted 2,20,955 health workers, 1,58,895 have been administered both the doses, ensuring 71% coverage while 207418 have received their first shot, followed by other frontline staff with 56%. Of 3,98,051, 2,25,397 have received both doses while 362547 have received first dose.
The coverage rate for senior citizens stood at 13.32%, as 4,30,709, out of 32,31,564, have received both doses while 14,07,788 have received their first jab. Those in the 45-59 age group 4,32,831 people receiving their both doses while 17,75,599 received their first jab, the coverage being 8.39%.
Even though youngsters have been turning out in large numbers to take the jab the coverage among the 18+ category with complete inoculation remains lowest with a mere 0.65 % receiving their both the doses. Out of 1,57,34,635 beneficiaries, only 1, 02,643 have received both doses while 2735807 have received first dose.
On being asked about the low coverage among the 18+ category, Dr Prasad said that the disruptions in supply chain of vaccine doses as well as the increased period for administering Covishield are to be blamed. “It is not that we aren’t vaccinating the younger population on a priority basis but their vaccination started late and the duration between both the doses of Covishiled is a minimum of 84 days. In next three months, we will be able to complete inoculation of a bigger chunk in that category too,” said Prasad.