As pace of jabs slows, states told to plan for door-to-door vaccination drive

NEW DELHI: Raising concerns over considerably slow pace of Covid-19 vaccination across states and UTs, the Centre has urged them to significantly step up pace and expedite full vaccination coverage to all eligible beneficiaries.
Highlighting the urgent need for an intensive ‘Mission Mode’ push to Covid-19 vaccination across the country to accelerate the recent slackening momentum, health secretary Rajesh Bhushan has advised states and UTs to plan for a two-month long “Har Ghar Dastak” campaign, during June-July, with detailed district, block and village levels plans.
“The objective of the ‘Har Ghar Dastak2.0’ Abhiyan is to vaccinate and saturate the eligible population groups for first, second and precaution doses through door-to-door campaigns, with focussed campaigns for old age homes, schools/colleges including the out-of-school children (for focussed coverage of children aged 12-18 years population), prisons, brick kilns,” the government said.
The coverage of precaution dose among elderly of 60 years and above age is also sub-optimal, along with considerably slower speed of coverage in the 12-14 years cohort, the health ministry said underlining the need for states and UTs to undertake effective monitoring with micro-plans based on due-lists of all eligible beneficiaries. The Centre also urged states to review administration of precaution dose to 18-59 years age-group with the private hospitals on a regular basis.
Underscoring that vaccine is a precious national resource, the Centre advised states to ensure that there is no wastage of Covid-19 vaccines at any cost. “This must be ensured through the “First Expiry First Out” principle, where doses that expire earlier should be used first,” the government said.