E-Paper
Prayagraj gets 80K Covid doses, vaccination drive at all centres to resume today
The district health department of Prayagraj would observe the ‘Covid-19 vaccination festival’ for the next four days with effect from Sunday (April 11 to April 14)
The district health department of Prayagraj would observe the ‘Covid-19 vaccination festival’ for the next four days with effect from Sunday (April 11 to April 14). Under the fest, vaccination against coronavirus would restart at all 97 vaccination centres spread across the rural and urban belt alike. This would be possible after the district that was running extremely low on stock of Covid-19 vaccine, would receive fresh stock of 80,000 doses by late Saturday night.
Nodal officer of Covid-19 vaccines in the district Dr Tirath Lal said, “The fresh stock of the vaccine had landed at Varanasi airport on Saturday afternoon from where it was dispatched for different neighbouring districts including Prayagraj. The vehicle carrying 80,000 doses of Covishield started for Prayagraj from Varanasi at around 6.15pm and would be arriving at the district by night. The ‘festival’ would commence in the district from Sunday at all 97 vaccination centres.”
Earlier in the day, the health department had conducted vaccination at five centres of the city including MLN Medical College, Kamla Nehru (Colvin) Divisional hospital, Tej Bahadur Sapru (Beli) Hospital, Duffrin hospital and Railway hospital of the city. The count of vaccination centres was cut down from the original 97 centres and the recent 34 centres owing to the shortage of vaccines in the district.
In a bid to control the use of available stock, vaccination was stopped at many rural-based primary health centres of the district and was being done only at Community health centres (CHC) for the past two days.
To effectively take on the Covid-19 outbreak, vaccination was started at 61 PHCs of the district in March. However, on Wednesday, vaccinations by these centres were stopped till further notice and just the 20 CHCs were administering the vaccines.
On Saturday, the vaccination process was held only at five centres of the city and all these centres witnessed a heavy rush of denizens who had turned up at the centres to get themselves vaccinated.
Because of the heavy rush, the stock of vaccines was over by noon at many centres, a few of which continued with the second dose of the vaccine only. Because of this, many persons had to return disappointed. At a few centres, people were seen arguing with the on-duty staff.
At one of the centres, 75-year-old Rajkumari Devi of Alopibagh looked disheartened at not getting vaccinated. She shared that she had somehow climbed down three floors of her house to get vaccinated. “Now, I am told there is no vaccine and I need to come again tomorrow. However, I will not be coming again as it has been exhausting for me,” she said.
Like her, Girdharlal, Sohan, Raju and Kajal were also annoyed at not being able to get vaccinated. They were complaining that the government should have made proper arrangements for the vaccine as the government is fully aware of the prevailing Covid-19 vaccine situation.
The district nodal officer of the vaccination said, “We have done micro-level preparations for starting the vaccination festival from Sunday and it would be our effort to see to it that more and more eligible people are vaccinated during these four days.”
