Ghaziabad achieves 81.27% vaccination coverage, many centres achieve 100% target

The Ghaziabad district on Friday, for the second round of vaccination, set a target of vaccinating 4,000 health care workers and managed to inoculate 3251 of them

The Ghaziabad district on Friday, for the second round of vaccination, set a target of vaccinating 4,000 health care workers and managed to inoculate 3251 of them.

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This, officials said, adds up to a coverage of 81.27%, with major hindrance in turnout only being due to ‘Anganwadi’ workers, who were hesitant about taking the jabs.

The district had started the second round of vaccination on Friday at 31 centres where 40 sessions were taken up by as many teams, with projected coverage of 100 beneficiaries by each team. During the first round of vaccination of health care workers on January 16, the district had a target of 400 health care workers and vaccinated 379 of them.

“A total of 3251 of the 4000 listed health care workers were vaccinated on Friday. There were some centres where some health care workers panicked while some others refused to join. The coverage was low at primary health care centre at Vijay Nagar. Those who did not turn up were mostly Anganwadi workers. We have about 500-600 of them and a majority of them did not turn up due to reluctance about the vaccine,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer.

Some of the centres also had issues with slow speed of the Co-Win app and the district health department officials had to take up entries even after the vaccinations got over at 5pm.

“There were some issues with the Co-Win portal, so we made entries even after the vaccination drive got over for the day. There were several centres where 100% vaccination was achieved and these include Shanti Gopal Hospital at Indirapuram and government health centre at Loni,” Dr Gupta added.

The highest target of 500 vaccinations in the district was at Max Hospital at Vaishali, with officials there stating that they had managed to vaccinate 477 of the beneficiaries in five sessions.

“The 23 health care workers who did not take the shots included some doctors (who got the vaccine at our Delhi hospital) and some others who had recently recovered from Covid infection. So, overall, the vaccination coverage was high (about 95.4%). There was no adverse events following immunization (AEFI) reported at our centre,” said DR Nidhi M Dev, medical superintendent of the hospital.

Further, both branches of Yashoda Hospital at Nehru Nagar and Kaushambi achieved 100% vaccination with each given a target of 200 and 300, respectively.

“Our staff cooperated and there was no AEFI event reported. I also took the shot after our vice-chairperson, Dr Shashi Arora, opted to take the first shot,” said Dr Sangeeta Garg, medical superintendent of the hospital.

The officials from hospital’s Kaushambi branch also said that there were no AEFI events reported from the 300 vaccination, which were taken up.

“We held regular training of our staff and also conducted regular awareness sessions about the vaccination. So, we were able to achieve 100% vaccination with full cooperation of our staff,” said a spokesperson from the hospital.

Officials of Columbia Asia Hospital near NH-9 said that they also achieved 100% vaccination of the 100 beneficiaries which were listed for Friday.

“The beneficiaries who received the SMS call were registered and vaccinated successfully. All were satisfied with the arrangement and cooperated with government officials. The vaccinations started at 10am and was done till 5pm and a total 100 people were inoculated,” Dr Sudhir Verma from Centre for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Columbia Asia Hospital, said in a statement.

At the government’s Sanjay Nagar Combined District Hospital, the turnout was 91 of 100 beneficiaries.

“Nine of our staff members were either on leave or had health complications due to which they were not found fit for vaccination. I took the first shot in the morning. None of our staff suffered any AEFI event,” said Dr Sanjay Teotia, the chief medical superintendent of the hospital.

In Ghaziabad, all the beneficiaries were given the Covishield vaccine.

Amit Mohan Prasad, UP’s additional chief secretary (health), said that “vaccination across the state was taken up at 1537 booths and 61,585 health care workers were vaccinated till 3pm on Friday.”