‘Tika utsav’: Ghaziabad, GB Nagar fall short of vaccination target

During the first three days of the four-day “tika utsav”, Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar fell short of their daily vaccination target

During the first three days of the four-day “tika utsav”, Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar fell short of their daily vaccination target.

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Officials from both districts attributed the reason to diverting resources towards Covid-19 management duties such as enforcement, testing and surveillance. However, a few doctors said they also had to contend with the lack of vaccines.

Tika utsave, or vaccination festival, was coined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Amid a rapid surge in Covid-19 cases, Modi, in his recent interaction with chief ministers, had proposed for four days starting from Sunday to ensure maximum participants in the vaccination drive. At present, those above 45 years of age are eligible to get the anti-Covid shot.

According to official records, Ghaziabad had vaccinated 32,358 people, while Gautam Budh Nagar vaccinated 25,070 till date.

The Uttar Pradesh government had given targets to each of the 75 districts. Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad were vaccinate 18000 people each on April 11, and 35,000 each on April 12 and April 13.

Instead, Ghaziabad vaccinated 8,112 people on April 11, 13,750 on April 12 and 10,496 on April 13. Similarly, the official records of GB Nagar health department stated that 6553 were vaccinated on April 11, 10787 on April 12 and 7730 on April 13.

According to figures, Ghaziabad’s coverage stood at 36.77% while GB Nagar’s coverage stood at 28.48% for three days against target of 88000 each.

The experts said that the coverage was not up to the mark considering target given.

“During the last week, there were issues of short supply of vaccine. When the fresh stock arrived, they were distributed to different Covid vaccination centres. Although the target given was on higher side, but more could have been achieved with prior supply of vaccine and proper resource management. So, regular supply is must,” said Dr VB Jindal, former president of Indian Medical Association (IMA - Ghaziabad).

“Vaccination has become vital in times when infection is spreading. There is lot of reluctance among people to get vaccinated. So, more awareness is to be spread and people should be motivated to come to Covid vaccination centres (CVCs). We also suggest that vaccination should be a comprehensive program and clinics should also be authorised to administer doses,” said Dr Ashish Agarwal, president of IMA, Ghaziabad.

Ahead of the “tika utsav”, both the districts received fresh supply of 80,000 doses each. GB Nagar received doses on the night of April 10 from Agra depot while Ghaziabad received their stock on morning of April 11 after which it was distributed to different CVCs.

“We fell short as we had to devote our resources to Covid management also. With the available resources, we could have achieved 15000-18000 per day on limited number of days. However, we achieved 100% target in the month of March and this month’s target will also be achieved,” said Suhas LY, district magistrate of GB Nagar.

Ghaziabad district magistrate could not be reached despite repeated calls made to him.

“Our achievement fell short of target as our manpower was also busy with Covid duties. However, our daily achievement was about 10000 and we will try to increase it further,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer of Ghaziabad.