Ghaziabad records lowest turnout for Covid-19 vaccination

Ghaziabad: The turnout for Covid-19 vaccination in Ghaziabad went down further on Friday with the district recording only 39

Ghaziabad: The turnout for Covid-19 vaccination in Ghaziabad went down further on Friday with the district recording only 39.41% coverage when it was the turn of front-line workers to take shots. Friday’s turnout is the lowest so far among all the vaccination sessions that started on January 16 in Ghaziabad, officials of the district health department said.

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Also, the officials said that Covaxin was administered to front-line workers on Thursday and Friday and resulted in no adverse event following immunization (AEFI).

On Friday, as many as 1,555 people got the shots out of the day’s target of 3,946. On Thursday, the coverage had stood at 45.33% with 1,559 front-line workers getting the shots out of a target of 3,439.

“The turnout remained at an all-time low on Friday as many front-line workers of different departments did not come up at the centres. We have time and again told their department heads to spread awareness and expedite the vaccination process, but the things have remained slow,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical office, Ghaziabad.

He said that it was the first time that Covaxin was administered to beneficiaries on Thursday and Friday.

“On both the days of administration of Covaxin, there were no AEFI events reported in the district. Prior to this, we administered Covishield which resulted in minor AEFI events in some cases during earlier days of vaccination. However, our experience with both the vaccines has been very encouraging and no beneficiary suffered any health complication,” Gupta added.

District magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey did not take calls for his comments over the issue of declining vaccination coverage in the district.

This was the eighth day of the vaccination drive that began on January 16.

On the first day, 94.75% (379 of 400) beneficiaries received their shots. On January 22, the turnout dropped to 81.28% (3,251 of 4,000), on January 28 it was 71.91% (4,095 of 5,695), January 29 had 72.69% (4,190 of 5,764), February 4 had 70.05% (3,557 of 5,078), and on February 5 the figure was 63.74% (3,129 of 4,909).

“Vaccination is the need of hour and there has to be more awareness among people to take it up. The present time is also suitable as the Covid cases in the state as well as in the district are at their lowest level. So, vaccination coverage needs to be increased further,” said Dr Ashish Agarwal, president of Indian Medical Association – Ghaziabad.

District’s overall coverage at the end of sessions on Friday stood at 65.35% with a total of 21,715 people vaccinated out of a target of 33,231 beneficiaries so far.