Ghaziabad tops UP’s mega single-day vaccination drive

Ghaziabad on Tuesday topped Uttar Pradesh during the one-day vaccination drive against Covid-19 vaccinating a record 76,931 people, according to Co-WIN data till 8pm

Ghaziabad on Tuesday topped Uttar Pradesh during the one-day vaccination drive against Covid-19 vaccinating a record 76,931 people, according to Co-WIN data till 8pm. The state vaccinated nearly 2.4 million people on the day, taking its total vaccinations till date to over 51 million.

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This was the most the district vaccinated till date, beating the previous daily figure of around 36,000 on July 6. It was also the most by any district in the state ever in a day.

According to the figures from Co-WIN, Lucknow was on the second spot with 70588, followed by Prayagraj at 60,490, Agra at 58,899and Meerut at 54,840.

Ghaziabad achieved the target with 185 Covid vaccination centres (CVC).

“The drive has given us the experience to handle more vaccinations and showed that our staff has gotten attuned to the process. Now we will be able to demand more vaccines for the district,” said Dr Bhavtosh Shankhdhar, chief medical officer of Ghaziabad.

The district has administered 1,551,623 doses till date, which is third highest in state after Lucknow and Gautam Budh Nagar. This figure includes the first and second doses of the vaccines.

Officials from the Ghaziabad health department said that they had requested 125,000 doses from the state, but were given about 75000. The extra doses came from vials leftover from previous days, they added.

Officials involved in the planning process said that teams of Accredited Social Health Activist (Asha workers) and Anganwadi workers and teams of health care workers and even NGOs helped in sensitising residents two days before the drive.

“We also roped in schools, community centres that had good ambience as vaccination centres in order to attract people. We tripled the number of CVCs. We achieved our target by 5pm but did not stop vaccinations. The experience that the staff gathered in the last seven months also paid off,” said Dr GP Mathuria, nodal officer for vaccination in the district.

Many CVCs on Tuesday catered to over three times the number of people they attended to on other days.

“Generally, our centre administers almost 300 doses per day. On Tuesday we clocked almost 1,000. We vaccinated almost all who came to our centre,” said Dr Sanjay Teotia, chief medical superintendent of Sanjay Nagar Combined District Hospital.

Dr Ashish Agarwal, president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Ghaziabad, applauded the district’s performance.

“It is a major achievement. We suggest that such drives be organised at least twice a week or on alternate days, with a particular focus on high caseload areas, so that the entire population can be covered,” he said.