PM urges door-to-door visits for full Covid vaccination; ‘har ghar dastak’ the new mantra

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 3

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday gave a clarion call of “knocking at every door” for achieving full Covid vaccination asking magistrates of districts with low coverage to find everyone who missed their schedules.

Immediately after returning from his visit to Italy and Glasgow, the Prime Minister held a review meeting with 48 districts having low vaccination coverage.

The meeting included districts with less than 50 per cent coverage of the first dose and low coverage of the second dose of Covid vaccine.

The Prime Minister interacted with magistrates of districts, including in Jharkhand, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, and others having low vaccination coverage.

The district magistrates gave an account of the issues and challenges being faced in their districts, which has resulted in low vaccination coverage.

They cited issues like rumours resulting in vaccine hesitancy, difficult terrain, challenges created due to prevailing weather conditions in recent months for low coverage.

They also presented an account of the steps taken by them to overcome these challenges.

The DMs also shared the good practices adopted by them which have led to an increase in coverage.

During the interaction, the Prime Minister discussed the issue of vaccine hesitancy and the local factors behind it in detail asking DMs to take help of faith leaders.

He discussed a wide array of ideas that can be implemented for ensuring 100 per cent vaccination coverage in these districts.

He spoke about maximising community engagement through religious and community leaders and exhorted officials to ensure that the country widens its vaccination coverage by the end of the year and enters the New Year with renewed self-belief and confidence.

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan gave an overview of the vaccination coverage in the country and an account of balance vaccine dose availability in the states which is over 13 crore.

Bhushan also talked about special vaccination campaigns being run in the some states to further improve vaccination coverage.

Addressing the gathering, the Prime Minister said that in this biggest pandemic of the century, the country faced many challenges but “one special thing was that it found new solutions and tried innovative methods”.

The PM urged the administrators to work more on new innovative ways to increase vaccination in their districts.

He said that even the better performing districts had similar challenges but they were met with determination and innovation.

Modi asked officials to develop micro strategies, keeping in mind the experience so far to go for saturation of vaccination by addressing the gaps at local level.

“Make different strategies for each village, each town in the districts, if need be. This can be done by forming a team of 20-25 people depending on the region. Try competition in the teams that you have formed. You will have to do your best to take your districts nearer the national average,” he said.

The Prime Minister touched upon the issue of rumours and misunderstanding about vaccination and suggested awareness as the only solution.

The Prime Minister noted that religious leaders are very enthusiastic about the vaccination campaign.

Recalling his meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican a few days ago, he said faith leaders were helping vaccinations.

He urged special emphasis on taking the message of religious leaders on vaccines to the public.

The Prime Minister also asked the officials to change gears from arrangements made for taking people to the vaccination centre and for safe vaccination to administering vaccines from door to door.

He asked health workers to reach every house with passion ‘har ghar tika, ghar ghar tika’: vaccine at every doorstep, and gave a call for ‘har ghar dastak’—knocking on every doorstep to ensure full vaccination.

“Now we are preparing to take the vaccination campaign to each household. With the mantra of  ‘har ghar sastak’, knock on every door, every household lacking the security net of a double dose of vaccine will be approached,” he said.

The Prime Minister cautioned that while knocking on every house, equal attention needed to be paid to the second dose as well as the first dose.

“Whenever the cases of infection start decreasing, sometimes the feeling of urgency decreases. The urgency in administering the vaccines comes down among the people. You will have to contact those people who have not taken the second dose despite the stipulated time on a priority basis...ignoring this has created problems for many countries in the world,” the PM alerted.

Out of 48 low vaccination districts 28 are in the northeast.

Haryana’s Nuh is also among these 48 low performers with just 25 per cent first dose coverage as against the national average of 77 per cent.