Gurugram: Health department eyes 100% first dose target in 100 villages

GURUGRAM: The district health department has mapped villages which have very few Covid-19 cases at present. People in these villages will be vaccinated aggressively to curb the spread of the virus in case a third wave hits the region.
The health department has shortlisted 100 villages in Gurugram where its teams will give 100% of the eligible population their first doses.
They have been selected on the basis of the number Covid cases reported and the number of eligible recipients.
On Friday, five villages of Gurugram administered at least one dose to their entire populations eligible for Covid-19 vaccines. Two other villages had earlier attained the 100% first dose target.
“Out of the 100 villages selected, as many as 50 villages have 1,000 or less eligible recipients, while the remaining have reported less than 50 Covid cases. We are yet to fix a timeline for these villages. We are aiming to vaccinate the entire projected population of Gurgaon based on the 2011 Census with at least one dose by August 15,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurgaon.
On how they plan to achieve this target, he said: “Our ASHA workers have already visited these villages and have carried out surveys. Now, we will set up camps at community centres so that people can reach these sites easily to get vaccinated. As the supply of vaccines is limited, we will have to set up sites with a fixed number of doses.”
On Friday, Aklimpur, Hasanpur, Khuntpuri, Meako and Nurpur villages attained the 100% first dose target. Hamirpur and Khetawas villages have already given at least one dose to all eligible recipients. With this, seven villages in Gurgaon have vaccinated their eligible populations with first doses.
Hasanpur sarpanch Virender Singh said he and his team visited every house in the village in the last 15 days to motivate people to get vaccinated. “We were going from house to house to address all apprehensions regarding the vaccine. People came forward to get inoculated on Friday and it is important that we get everyone eligible inoculated before another wave hits us,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gurgaon will be setting up 41 government session sites on Saturday. Only two sites will give first doses, whereas the rest will have only slots only for second dose recipients.
On Friday, 4,935 people in the 18-44 age group and 2,265 in the 45-plus category were vaccinated in the city. As many as 196 healthcare staff and 340 frontline workers also took the shot. In all, 20,694 jabs — 9,796 first doses and 10,898 second doses — were administered on Friday, of which 14,315 were given at government session sites.
5 new cases, no deaths
Gurgaon reported five new cases of Covid-19 on Friday, taking the caseload to 1,80,781. The city has 70 active cases at present and the positivity rate stands at 0.1%. No Covid deaths were reported on the day.
Nine patients also recovered from the virus on Friday, taking the total number of recoveries to 1,79,792. The recovery rate stands at 99.6%. A total of 60 patients are in home isolation while 10 are in hospitals.