Odisha: Asha workers to help mobilise vaccine recipients

BHUBANESWAR: To increase the second dose coverage of Covid vaccine, which has been very slow in the state, the health department has prepared a list of recipients who are due to receive the final jab. The list has been prepared at micro-level in villages.
According to the strategy, the list of second dose beneficiaries has been shared with Asha workers. They will mobilise people, who have taken the first shot and are due to receive the final one. Despite repeated reminders, the state has so far administered final Covid vaccines to 109,24,824 people out of 3.20 crore beneficiaries. Bijay Panigrahi, director, family welfare said the vaccination for the final dose has been slow because people are not serious as infection has reduced substantially.
"We have tried our best to mobilise people to take the vaccine by sending messages. In villages, we created clusters involving two to three villages for vaccination together. Earlier, we only had primary health centres for the purpose. But still the drive hasn't reached the desired level," Panigrahi said.
In terms of administering the second dose, Boudh and Deogarh are only districts with less than one lakh people taking the second jab although number of people, who have taken the first dose in the two districts is beyond the two lakh mark.
Ganjam district tops in terms of final dose beneficiaries (16.23 lakh) while Khurda has administered 14.69 lakh with the final shot.