Bihar amps up Covid vaccination drive, enrols close to 2 lakh frontline staff

The Bihar state government has enrolled 1.94 lakh frontline workers for vaccination against coronavirus disease as it stepped up efforts to complete the exercise of inoculating 4.64 lakh healthcare workers by asking medical colleges to vaccinate on all days, except holidays.

Frontline workers are those under the ministry of home affairs, ministry of housing and urban affairs and revenue staff of department of health.

The health department had earlier fixed four days a week - Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday - for vaccination against Covid-19.

It also asked government facilities like district hospitals and below to try and saturate the vaccination of its healthcare workers as soon as possible.

The change in vaccination days was done because medical colleges had a larger cohort, said a health official.

At the same time, the low vaccination footfall at district and sub-divisional hospitals, community and primary health centres (PHCs) had prompted the government to reduce the number of vaccination days to twice a week.

The Guru Gobind Singh Hospital, an urban health centre in Patna City, had 33% footfall, Maner primary health centre (PHC) 36%, Phulwarisharif PHC 39%, Masaurhi sub-divisional hospital (SDH) 40%, Dhanarua PHC 43%, Danapur SDH 44% and Fatuha community health centre (CHC) 49% among the 17 session sites (vaccination centres) in Patna on January 23.

In contrast, barring the Nalanda Medical College Hospital (33% footfall), other medical colleges in Patna received better response. The Patna Medical College Hospital registered 85% footfall, All India Institute of Medical Sciences 79% and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences 52% footfall the same day. The day’s overall vaccination percentage in Patna was 64%, which was more than on January 21 (50%).

Health facilities have now been asked to speed up the process so that inoculation of frontline workers, which is the next priority group for vaccination, can be taken up soon, said the officer.

“To speed up vaccination, 12 new government session sites have been identified for vaccination in Patna. Besides, 22 private healthcare facilities have also been shortlisted where smaller private health facilities will be tagged for vaccination of its healthcare workers,” said Patna civil surgeon Dr Vibha Kumari Singh.

Only three private facilities in Patna - Paras HMRI, Ruban Memorial Hospital and BIG Apollo Hospital - have so far been chosen as session sites for vaccination.