Odisha asks districts to speed up Covid 19 vaccination drive as numbers slide

Last week, the state exceeded its daily target for a couple of days till some sort of complacency set in.

The Odisha government has asked all district collectors and municipal commissioners to ensure 100% Covid vaccination of all healthcare workers by February 10 deadline, even as the rate of vaccination in the state dropped to the lowest ever figure of 71% on Friday.

Reena Jani rose early, finished her chores in the crisp January cold and walked uphill to the road skirting her remote tribal hamlet of Pendajam in eastern India. Riding pillion on a neighbour's motorcycle for 40 minutes through hillsides dotted with paddy fields, the 34-year-old tribal health worker headed for Mathalput Community Health Centre. Jani's name was on a list of 100 health workers at the centre, making her one of the first Indians to be inoculated against COVID-19 earlier this month, as the country rolls out a vaccination programme the government calls the world's biggest. But she had heard rumours of serious side effects and worried about what would happen were she to get ill. "I was frightened because of my son and daughters. If something happens to me, what will they do?" Jani told Reuters, visibly relieved after the injection produced no immediate side effects. The vaccine she received had travelled much further. It was taken by plane, truck and van some 1,700 km from the factory to Mathalput Community Health Centre where Jani waited, and it had to be kept cold the whole way. Its safe arrival in Koraput district, where leftist guerrillas wage a low-level insurgency amid rolling hills and thick forests, was testament to detailed planning and groundwork by authorities in the state of Odisha. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui SEARCH "SIDDIQUI OXFORD/ASTRAZENECA" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES. TEMPLATE OUT. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY. Matching text: HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/INDIA-VACCINE (REUTERS)

On Friday, Odisha could vaccinate 11,142 healthcare workers out of the targeted 15,701, achieving 71% of its daily goal, while the state government continued to claim that it was No1 in achieving vaccination targets among all states. Lakshadweep, with more than 80% of its vaccination target achieved, was the all-India topper.

"Clear message should be given that those who do not turn up for vaccination when called on the designated date will forgo the opportunity to get a free vaccine from the government. The 1st dose of vaccination for all healthcare workers will close on 10th February. In this matter, it is of great concern that in some districts, the percentage coverage of health workers vaccinated in the past week is poor," state health secretary PK Mohapatra wrote in a letter.

The state government plans to start giving the second dose of vaccine to healthcare workers from February 15, exactly 28 days after the first jab.

Till Friday, 60.53% of the total 350,726 healthcare workers in Odisha were vaccinated. The drive went poorly in 9 districts, including Khurda and Cuttack. The coverage in Deogarh was lowest at 42%, followed by Khurda- 61% & Jajpur- 62%.

Last week, the state exceeded its daily target for a couple of days till some sort of complacency set in. Despite the glitches in the Co-Win app, officials overcame the problems by sending Google sheets to districts for uploading the vaccination statistics, which was then uploaded on the Co-Win app at Bhubaneswar, where the internet connectivity is a lot better. The state government also sent SMS to individual beneficiaries and conducted vaccination every day, except Sunday.

Even in big hospitals, such as AIIMS Bhubaneswar, the vaccination coverage has been very low. Only 1,426 healthcare workers, merely 35% of the target, had got the jab there. While more than 79% of the targeted security staff and 67% of the targeted IT staff had been vaccinated, only 57% faculty members had received the shot, with several senior faculty members yet to take the vaccine.