Speed up vaccination drive, Modi tells Aurangabad district | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
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Speed up vaccination drive, Modi tells Aurangabad district

By, Mumbai
Nov 03, 2021 09:36 PM IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed the Aurangabad administration to speed up the Covid-19 vaccination drive during an interaction with collectors of over 40 districts across the country where the inoculation drive is slow

Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed the Aurangabad administration to speed up the Covid-19 vaccination drive during an interaction with collectors of over 40 districts across the country where the inoculation drive is slow. Eight districts in Maharashtra, including Aurangabad, Nandurbar, Buldhana, Hingoli, Nanded, Beed, Amravati and Akola, are lagging behind, with respect to the pace of inoculation drive.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed the Aurangabad administration to speed up the Covid-19 vaccination drive during an interaction with collectors of over 40 districts across the country where the inoculation drive is slow. Eight districts in Maharashtra, including Aurangabad, Nandurbar, Buldhana, Hingoli, Nanded, Beed, Amravati and Akola, are lagging behind, with respect to the pace of inoculation drive. (SATISH BATE/HT)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed the Aurangabad administration to speed up the Covid-19 vaccination drive during an interaction with collectors of over 40 districts across the country where the inoculation drive is slow. Eight districts in Maharashtra, including Aurangabad, Nandurbar, Buldhana, Hingoli, Nanded, Beed, Amravati and Akola, are lagging behind, with respect to the pace of inoculation drive. (SATISH BATE/HT)

In these districts, around 51% to 57% eligible population have been administered the first dose, while the state’s overall average is 73.7%. As of November 2, Maharashtra had administered 98,793,874 doses, of which 67,533,015 people have got one dose. Of the target population of 91.44 million, the state has inoculated just 67.52 million people till Tuesday. 31.25 million people in the state have been fully vaccinated.

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On Wednesday, Modi interacted with district collectors of over 40 districts in Jharkhand, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, among other states with districts having low vaccination coverage.

Aurangabad district collector Sunil Chavan gave a presentation on the best practices followed by the district to boost the vaccination numbers. According to Chavan, the prime minister appealed to him to boost the immunisation rate of the district, which currently stood at 55.12%, as Aurangabad is a tourist district.

While Mumbai, Pune, Bhandara and Sindhdurga lead the vaccination drive with percentage of first dose inoculation ranging between 89 and 99%, few districts like Nandurbar, Akola, Beed, Buldhana and Amravati lag much behind with the percentage hovering between 51 and 55% for the first dose. Of the 98.53 million doses administered so far, nearly 45% are in Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Nahsik and Nagpur.

Thackeray took a review of the vaccination on Tuesday and appealed to the citizens to come forward and vaccinate themselves. “Vaccination tends to prevent infection and also blunts the effects of virus. Citizens should take both the doses,” said Thackeray. He asserted that citizens need to adopt to Covid-19 appropriate behaviour even though the cases may be decreasing. “Even though the cases have been coming down, still the Covid-19 threat still exist and we cannot let our guard down,” said Thackeray.

Thackeray on Monday said that in wake of the drop in cases, the people are not coming forward for the vaccination. He has also directed the machinery to take up special drives for the vaccination.

As part of interacting with the districts having low vaccination rate, Modi made the appeal to expedite the inoculation drive and vaccinate the population at the earliest while virtually addressing Aurangabad collector, in the presence of chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.

“The prime minister heard the presentation and directed us to ramp up the vaccination drive as Aurangabad is a tourist district. From this week, we will implement a drive allowing vaccinated people at the tourist spots [in the district]. Besides that, I presented the reasons for the low immunisation numbers. The reasons include vaccine hesitancy, heavy rainfall and floods in the district, etc,” Chavan told HT.

The collector added that he apprised Modi about the ongoing immunisation initiatives in the district including ‘Mission Kavach Kundal’, and ‘Mann Me Hai Vishwas’, which is being implemented in the district. “The vaccination has been increased by implementing the ‘Mission Kavach Kundal Abhiyan’ under the guidance of the chief minister. Similarly, ‘Mann Mein Hai Vishwas,’ a campaign involving religious leaders of all communities, has also helped increase the numbers,” Chavan said.

He added that the district administration will take up initiatives at micro level including ‘Mera Ward One Hundred Per cent Vaccination Ward’ and a drive involving children to ask their parents to get vaccinated.

According to the data of the state health department, the overall average for first dose is 73.7%, 22 districts of the 35 districts in Maharashtra are below the state’s average. In terms of the second dose, 34.06% of the eligible population are fully vaccinated, while 23 districts are below the overall state average for double doses.

Chief minister Thackeray took stock of the vaccination drive in the state on Tuesday and had directed officials to administer at least one dose to all the eligible population by November 30, 2021. A senior bureaucrat said that the CM has directed district administrations to step up the initiatives including more information, education and communication (IEC) drives, involving religious and community leaders.

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