One-fourth of target population in Punjab yet to get fully vaccinated

Low response to Covid-19 vaccine second dose has compelled the Punjab health department to make calls to beneficiaries to come forward to get jabbed

Chandigarh : The government may have launched a drive to administer Covid-19 precaution doses to those above 18 years of age, only 73% of the target population in Punjab have been jabbed with the second dose.

The government may have launched a drive to administer Covid-19 precaution doses to those above 18 years of age, only 73% of the target population in Punjab have been jabbed with the second dose.

Low response to second dose has compelled the Punjab health department to make calls to beneficiaries to come forward to get jabbed.

According to the state health department data, 96% of the beneficiaries of the targeted population of 2.28 crore have been jabbed with the first dose. Department officials dealing with the vaccination drive claim that keeping in view the gap of mandatory days for the second dose, the coverage should have been 82-85%.

Data reveals that there are beneficiaries whose doses are due from the past two to three months, but have not taken the jab even after repeated reminders through SMSes, which the CoWIN application sends automatically.

The dose interval for Covid-19 vaccines under the National Vaccination Drive is 12-16 weeks for Covishield and 4-6 weeks for Covaxin.

“People are not taking the second dose thinking that Covid is over and they don’t need to get jabbed. In some cases, mobile numbers registered on the application during the first dose have also been changed,” said Punjab’s nodal officer for Covid-19 Dr Rajesh Bhaskar.

He said the department has also constituted special teams to personally call the people to get jabbed with second dose.

The department claims to have identified certain villages and areas in which the pendency of second dose is high and special camps are being held to get people vaccinated.

The officials claim that various studies have found that during third wave, the hospital occupancy was low because of the vaccination.

Meanwhile, plans to start booster doses for the 18-plus category is yet to pick up pace in the state with private hospitals yet to get the orders booked with the vaccine manufacturers.

“Only corporate hospitals, who were already having vaccines, are providing the booster doses,” said a health department official.