E-Paper
Bihar looking at ways to reach out to differently-abled for Covid-19 jabs
Bihar had deployed around 725 “Teeka Express”, which are mobile vaccination vans, to reach out to people for Covid-19 jabs in rural areas.
The Bihar health department has instructed districts to inoculate on a priority basis those who are bed-ridden, differently-abled and the old and infirm, especially those having restricted mobility, in an effort to saturate the state with vaccination against coronavirus.
Bihar has 23.31 lakh people categorised under “disabled” in a population of 10.40 crore, as per Census 2011, shared by the social welfare department. Of these, 14.70 lakh have been issued disability certificates and are entitled to various benefits, including pension, under government schemes. Disabled are entitled to a monthly pension of ₹400 in Bihar.
Since the available data on differently-abled is based on Census 2011, the state health society, Bihar (SHSB), on Tuesday, instructed district magistrates (DMs) and civil surgeons to prepare a line-list of all such people in their respective district, and chalk out an action plan to vaccinate them.
The SHSB also advised the DMs and civil surgeons to use mobile vaccination vans and press into service outreach workers like accredited social health activists (AHSA) to tap and vaccinate all such people as close as possible to their residences.
Bihar had deployed around 725 “Teeka Express”, which are mobile vaccination vans, to reach out to people for Covid-19 jabs in rural areas.
“We are approaching first-dose vaccination saturation in the state. Since the number of eligible population for vaccination has come down, we have to reach out to the population, which is still unvaccinated. The most important in this category is the differently abled and the old and the infirm, having restricted mobility, as they are unable to come to our vaccination centres. We have to now reach out to them through our outreach workers,” said Sanjay Kumar Singh, executive director, State Health Society, Bihar, and also the state nodal officer for vaccination.
Bihar’s first dose vaccine coverage is around 63% of the eligible adult population of 7.22 crore and 27% second dose of those who have taken the first jab.
“We had asked our polio supervisors during the recent pulse polio drive (September 26 to October 1) to find out people who have been left out of Covid vaccination. They have marked all households where people due for their second dose have not taken the shot or those completely left out. We will try and persuade all such people to take the Covid-19 vaccine,” added Singh.
The share of males with multiple disabilities in Bihar was 1.9% and females at 1.3%, according to the National Statistical Office (NSO) of the ministry of statistics and programme Implementation (MOSPI), mainly responsible for laying down standards for statistical analysis, data collection, and implementation.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had in June given his officials the task to administer 6 crore vaccine doses in six months by December this year. Bihar has administered over 5.80 crore doses so far.
