Covid cases rise in Lucknow but no takers for vaccine

LUCKNOW: While Covid-19 cases are increasing in the city, the process of vaccination against the disease in the government hospitals has been at a standstill for the last two months because there is no demand from people, who don't seem to be taking the spike seriously.
There are nine authorised centres to offer vaccination in the city. They include five government facilities - SPM Civil Hospital, NK Road Community Health Centre, Lokbandhu Hospital and Balrampur Hospital. However, authorities said that all the government hospitals have stopped keeping stock of the vaccine since February because there has been no demand for it for the past several weeks.
According to health department officials, almost 95% of the 44-lakh population in the city had already been covered with the two-dose vaccine course. Also, over 9 lakh people have taken precautionary or booster shots.
District immunisation officer Dr MK Singh said that the demand for booster had increased in January when there was a scare due to spurt in Covid-19 cases in China due to a highly infectious new sub-variant of Omicron.
"Then, on an average, 100 people were being vaccinated daily in various facilities. The authorities also conducted a door-to-door vaccination campaign in January to administer 20,000 doses at that time," he added.
However, he said, the demand for vaccination dropped to nil in February when people saw that the most cases reported in India lacked severity. The same trend continued in March and now in April.
"We are monitoring the current situation closely and if people come forward for vaccination, we will arrange the shots," he added.
Experts, however, advised people, particularly those with comorbidities, to get vaccinated with the precautionary dose. Prof Anil Kumar Gulati, former head, microbiology department of IMS, BHU said that people should get the booster because the number and quality of antibodies generated after vaccination often gets depleted with time.