Maharashtra gave first vaccine dose to 16.12 million

Of the targetted population of 33

Of the targetted population of 33.8 million, Maharashtra has administered the first vaccine dose to 16.12 million people across all age group till Thursday. A total of 4.34 million (12.84% of the targetted 33.8 million) have got both the doses. It means, against the state’s total population of 125 million, around 3.47% or 4.34 million people have been vaccinated with both the doses.

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Very few districts such as Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nagpur and Kolhapur have crossed the state average, while most of the backward districts are way behind it. Hingoli in Central Maharashtra, Gadchiroli in Vidarbha and Sindhudurg in Konkan are lagging much behind with 126,383, 137,405 and 172,565 people vaccinated with their first doses. The percentage of the vaccinated population against its targeted population of 45-plus hovers around 20-25%.

“There is huge hesitancy among people over vaccination for various reasons, including illiteracy, apprehension about safety, availability of resources and in some cases low percentage of infection. The districts which have taken proactive steps to motivate people for the vaccination have improved the percentage,” said an official from the health department.

Districts like Gadchiroli, Nandurbar, Hingoli and Washim are lagging behind the state average. Some of the tribal districts have undertaken special drives to encourage the people for the jabs. In Nandurbar, district collector Rajendra Bharud has mobilised logistical resources to take people to the vaccination centres from far-flung areas.

It yielded the results and helped the district improve the percentage.

“The hesitancy is basically because of illiteracy among people. We have made video clips of prominent social workers such as Abhay Bang appealing people to come forward for vaccination. Still our percentage is low comparing other districts,” said Dr Anil Rude, civil surgeon, Gadchiroli another tribal district.

Kolhapur district has led the way and vaccinated 57% of the eligible population above 45 years with first dose. “A total of 1.15 million people of the 1.59 million eligible in this age group have been vaccinated with first dose and 0.22 million have been vaccinated with second doses. We reached out to every village with the help of our sub-centres for vaccinations, which have helped us in reaching near the target. We also paid attention to keep the wastage low by training our vaccinators. We could give 13,000 doses more than the expected doses by saving additional drops in the vials. Our wastage rate of vaccine is -0.5%,” said Dr Farooque Desai, district immunisation officer.

The state is currently facing shortage of vaccines, forcing it to suspend the drive for the 18-44 age group. The state is expected to resume the drive for the age group in the last week of May. Until May 19, Maharashtra received 20,709,240 doses of vaccines. It included 2,672,370 doses of Covaxin, while the remaining were Covishield. A total of 1,9891,50 were procured by the state government for the age group of 18-44. The state has inoculated 661,016 people in the age group of 18-44 years with first doses.

The state has floated global tenders for procurement of 50 million doses of vaccines that have been approved by WHO and USFDA. Three days after the expression of interest, the state has not received any response.

“Despite relaxing the terms, we have not received response from any manufacturer. We will urge the central government to facilitate the import of vaccine as well as other drugs required to treat Covid-19. We have been requesting the Centre for integrated national policy on import of the vaccine. It will help in distributing the vaccine quota to all states and also decide which vaccine suits the requirement of the country,” Tope said.

The shortage of vaccines resulted in drastic drop in weekly vaccination rate. In six days between May 15 and 21, 722,528 people were inoculated, against 1,834,369 in the preceding week of May 8-14 and 1,433,165 during May 01-07. In the last week of April from 24 to 30, 2,080,998 doses were administered.