Bihar crosses 6 crore vaccine doses, 9 states adopt Patna’s successful vaccination model

Having inoculated 1,36,560 doses on August 7, Patna became the fifth district in India to cross the 1 lakh vaccination mark in a single day. It achieved another milestone by becoming the second district in the state after East Champaran to vaccinate over 2 lakh people in a day, having administered 2,01,142 doses during a mega camp on October 2.

Nine Indian states have replicated Patna’s successful Covid-19 vaccination model of administering jabs to people at their convenience through 24x7 or 12 hours-a-day vaccination camps, as Bihar crossed the 6-crore dose vaccination mark out of its target population of 7.22 crore on Saturday.

Jharkhand, Assam, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi (NCR) have commenced Covid-19 vaccination mega camps in collaboration with the Care India, after its successful implementation in Patna. (HT PHOTO.)

“We achieved administering 6-crore Covid-19 vaccination doses to beneficiaries in the state today with people’s cooperation, support from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and guidance of chief minister Nitish Kumar. We had set up 15,000 vaccination sites and pressed into service over 50,000 personnel on the job,” said Bihar’s health minister Mangal Pandey.

“If we continue to get the same cooperation of our people, we will achieve administering 8 crore doses in the state by December,” added Pandey. The Bihar chief minister had on June 11 set a target to administer 6 crore jabs to 6 crore people by December. The state had then achieved around 1.16 crore jabs.

Three other states, meanwhile, are lined up to roll out 24x7 or 12-hour mega camps on the pattern of Patna soon, said a resource person of Care India, which provides technical support to Bihar government’s health, nutrition, education and livelihoods programme.

Jharkhand, Assam, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi (NCR) have commenced Covid-19 vaccination mega camps in collaboration with the Care India, after its successful implementation in Patna, said Mansoon Mohanty, team lead for Patna district resource unit of Care India.

The initiative will be rolled out soon in Andhra Pradesh, Manipur and Himachal Pradesh, he added.

“The Inter State Bus Terminus (ISBT) and the airport at Guwahati (Assam’s capital) operate 24x7 mega camps in our collaboration. Likewise, Malleshwaram, in Bengaluru, has also initiated a 24x7 vaccination mega camp, after its success in Patna,” said Mohanty.

“Other places like Jharkhand’s Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Bokaro and Jamshedpur; Udaipur in Rajasthan; Bhopal, Panna, Balaghat and Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Lucknow and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi (NCR) have mega camps, which operate 12 to 15 hours a day,” he added.

All mega camps, hosted in our collaboration in other states, have been initiated in August and September, after their success in Patna, where we launched them in June,” said Mohanty.

The 24x7 vaccination mega camps at the government polytechnic in Patliputra Colony, Hotel Patliputra Ashok on Beer Chand Patel Path and the Patliputra stadium at Kankerbagh, managed by the Care India in Patna, have catered to the administration of over 50% doses to the nearly 12 lakh urban population of Patna, said Chandrashekhar Singh, Patna’s district magistrate (DM).

Patna, which has an estimated target population of 44,24,678 to vaccinate, is a success story as far as Covid-19 vaccination in Bihar is concerned. It has done better than the state and national average and tops among 38 districts in the state in terms of administering Covid-19 doses to beneficiaries.

With a total of 51,93,789 doses administered till 6.30pm on Thursday, Patna has a first dose coverage of around 76% and 58% second dose achievement against the first shot. The state’s vaccination coverage is 64% and 28%, respectively, as on Thursday (6.40pm). Around 26.3% had been fully vaccinated with both doses in India, while the country’s first dose coverage was 70.1%, as of 7am on October 3.

Having inoculated 1,36,560 doses on August 7, Patna became the fifth district in India to cross the 1 lakh vaccination mark in a single day. It achieved another milestone by becoming the second district in the state after East Champaran to vaccinate over 2 lakh people in a day, having administered 2,01,142 doses during a mega camp on October 2.

East Champaran administered 2,40,054 doses on September 17, during a special vaccination drive on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday, when Bihar logged 33,39,879 Covid jabs, the day’s highest in India when it administered 2.5 crore doses.

“Patna ranks ninth among Indian districts in terms of administering Covid vaccine doses. We have vaccinated over 114% of our urban population and 57% of district’s rural population. Many people from rural areas and adjoining districts have come to take shots at our 24x7 vaccination centres,” said Singh.

“We understood the people’s need and convenience and launched the special vaccination centres in June so that we can tap the people interested in taking jabs early in the morning, before going to office or on their return from work in the evening. We opened three 24x7 centres and a couple for 12 hours-a-day. Their response was very encouraging, prompting other districts to adopt it,” the DM said.

Danapur, Sheikhpura and Kankerbagh branches of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Sri Krishna Memorial Hall, ITI-Digha, Anugrah Narayan College, the Ram Dev Mahto Samudayik Bhawan (community hall) and the Patna Women’s College were venues of special centres in Patna, most of which were operational from 9am to 5pm, while a couple functioned for 12 hours a day.

“We reduced the waiting time at the special camps by deploying our best workforce, increasing the number of vaccinating teams, segregating people based on their choice of vaccine, age and gender, having separate queues for them. We also ensured cleanliness and hygiene, providing basic facilities like drinking water and washroom, having proper waiting areas with arrangement for sitting and opened up to 1,000 slots a day at each such camp, before introducing on-spot registrations,” said Singh.

“Many other districts (Katihar, Darbhanga, Rohtas, Gaya and Bhagalpur) in Bihar, and some other Indian states are also learnt to have recently adopted our model,” added Singh.