Mega vax drive: 3.19 lakh get jabs in Assam on day 1
From Sandeep Sharma
GUWAHATI: Altogether 3,19,430 beneficiaries were vaccinated with their corona shots till Monday evening on the first day of the revised guidelines for Covid-19 vaccination coming into effect, an official statement of National Health Mission (NHM) here said.
Assam has received about 30 crore Covid-19 free vaccines so far supplied by the minister of health and family welfare.
It is the highest number of doses administered in a day since the vaccination drive started on January 16.
According to the revised guidelines, vaccine doses provided free of cost by the Centre will be allocated to states and UTs based on criteria such as population, disease burden and the progress of vaccination, and all above the age of 18 will be eligible for the free jabs.
As many as 2,184 Covid vaccination centres (CVCs) have been set up across the state, including tea gardens and rural areas to conduct the vaccination drive.
The state health department has targeted to vaccinate 3 lakh people daily, the statement said.
Of 2,184 CVCs conducting the vaccination drive, 2,162 are government sites, while 22 are private centres, the statement said.
“Assam has vaccinated more than 3 lakh persons today. I would like to congratulate Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri. Narendra Modi Ji and Hon’ble Chief Minister of Assam, Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma for their visionary leadership. My gratitude to Hon’ble Guardian Ministers, all Health officials, Vaccinators, Police, District Administration and others, who made it successful,” state health minister Keshab Mahanta said.
“Model Vaccination Centres have been prepared tastefully in order to give the feeling of hope, positive spirit as well as an enjoyable environment to all our participant beneficiaries in this drive. CVCs have been provided with drinking water, toilet facilities and sitting arrangements. Along with that, we have also extensively conducted branding of Model Vaccination Centres, with prior miking activities before the start of the campaign,” NHM mission director Dr. Lakshmanan S said.
“Before the start of this campaign, we have also engaged in removing vaccine hesitancy as well, through the use of IECs, which has generated a positive public response today. Our ASHA workers have also tremendously engaged in interpersonal communication (IPC) activities in order to generate a greater demand for Covid vaccination amongst our people,” Dr. Lakshmanan said.
With the deployment of two nurses, 2 personnel for crowd management, two computer operators, one verifier along with police personnel at each government-run vaccination centres; provisions for sitting arrangements, drinking water as well as toilet facilities have been provided in the CVCs. The state has recorded 2805 fresh cases of Covid-19 positive on Monday with an overall positive rate of 1.64%.
Altogether 35 people succumbed to their infection in various hospitals in the last 24 hours, the report added.
