With vaccine in stock, Noida, Ghaziabad to launch ‘tika utsav’

Noida/Ghaziabad: Just a day or two before the Gautam Budh Nagar district was expected to run out of the Covid-19 vaccines, a consignment of 80,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine was dispatched from the central vaccine depot located in Agra on Saturday, officials said

Noida/Ghaziabad: Just a day or two before the Gautam Budh Nagar district was expected to run out of the Covid-19 vaccines, a consignment of 80,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine was dispatched from the central vaccine depot located in Agra on Saturday, officials said.

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District magistrate Suhas LY said: “As scheduled, we have received the doses. The district now has an adequate stock for a comprehensive vaccination drive. These doses will not only make the four-day special vaccination festival (vishesh tika utsav), from April 11, successful, but also ensure adequate inoculation at all centres at least for a week,” he said.

He added that despite the critical stock, the vaccination drive in the district was ahead of the target for April. “The district has a target of inoculating 1.62 lakh people in April, but our progress so far is much ahead. In only 10 days of this month, we have vaccinated as many as 73,582 persons, which is 45.42% of the target set for the whole month,” he said.

Chief medical officer (CMO) Dr Deepak Ohri said that state medical education minister Suresh Kumar Khanna visited the district’s integrated Covid-19 control room in Sector 59 Saturday. “He expressed satisfaction with the systematic approach and follow-up methods of our staff there. He also took the details of all 513 home isolated persons and spoke with a few of them,” he said.

Additional CMO, Dr Lalit Kumar, nodal officer of the home isolation cell, said the cell has 21 operators, four doctors and a nodal officer. “They are keeping a close tab on the persons, who have recently travelled to foreign countries in the recent past,” he said.

GHAZIABAD TO GET 80,000 DOSES

Meanwhile, the Ghaziabad district will get a fresh supply of 80,000 doses on Sunday morning from Lucknow. Sources in the state health department said that both Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar have been given a target of vaccinating 18,000 beneficiaries each on April 11 and 35,000 each on April 12 and 13 during the tika utsav announced by the state government.

The vehicles were dispatched Saturday to the vaccine depots at Lucknow and Agra. Ghaziabad officials said they are borrowing 25,000 doses from GB Nagar till the vaccines arrive.

“Doses from GB Nagar will be supplied to 63 of our government vaccination centres by Sunday morning. Our vehicle from Lucknow will arrive late in the morning. Once it comes, we will reimburse GB Nagar with 25,000 doses and the remaining stock will be supplied to private CVCs as well. At private CVCs, the vaccination is likely to begin by Sunday afternoon,” said an official from the district health department, requesting anonymity.

“The daily target is also given to us for the tika utsav and it will be taken up by private and government CVCs. As per target, we have to vaccinate 88,000 beneficiaries during the first three days of this drive,” the official added.

“We are getting 80,000 doses of vaccine and we have planned that on Sunday, we will vaccinate 20,000 beneficiaries against the target of 18,000 given to us. The vaccine which we get from GB Nagar will be returned to them once our stock arrives. It is an internal arrangement so that vaccination process is not hampered,” said Ghaziabad district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey.

He had claimed on Thursday and Friday that there was no shortage of vaccines in the district.

“We will be getting 80,000 doses by Sunday morning and this will help us take up vaccination drive during the tika utsav and in the meantime, some stock will also be taken from GB Nagar,” said Dr NK Gupta, CMO, Ghaziabad.

CASES ON THE RISE

With 221 new cases detected on Saturday, GB Nagar has crossed the 1,000-case mark of active cases in the district, with the figure at 1,121. The last time active cases in the district were above this mark was December 6, 2020.

The overall tally of Covid-19 cases in GB Nagar district was 27,267 so far. The death toll remained at 93 as no fresh fatality was reported in the last 24 hours.

Ghaziabad reported 159 new cases, with its tally now at 28,039. No new death was reported and the active cases are at 695.