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Patna completes 1 lakh Covid-19 vaccinations in a day, ranks fifth in India
Patna has now administered 95% first dose vaccination to its urban adult population and 33% to the rural masses. The district’s first-dose achievement was 53% against the state’s 32%. The district has administered 13,61,533 doses to its 43,49,131 target population so far.
Patna administered 1,36,560 doses of Covid-19 vaccines on Saturday, the highest achieved on the day by any district in India, and also became only the fifth in India to cross the 1 lakh vaccination mark in a single day, officials said.
Patna’s contribution was 27% of the state’s achievement of 5,09,447 doses administered on Saturday.
“We surpassed Bengaluru (88,327), Ahmedabad (55,988), Mumbai (53,988), Belgaum (49,513), Kurnool (49,203), Surat (48,691), Dehradun (44,495) and Chennai (41,357) in terms of Covid jabs on Saturday,” said Patna’s district magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh.
“We also earned the unique distinction of joining the elite club of five districts in India to cross the 1 lakh mark of Covid-19 vaccinations in a single day,” he added.
Indore, with 2,27,349 doses in a day, tops the list of such districts, followed by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (1,73,960), Bhopal (1,56,137) and Ujjain (1,05,314).
Patna has now administered 95% first dose vaccination to its urban adult population and 33% to the rural masses. The district’s first-dose achievement was 53% against the state’s 32%. The district has administered 13,61,533 doses to its 43,49,131 target population so far.
Patna had achieved 18% full immunisation against the state’s 6% coverage of the target population of 7.22 crore to have taken both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, said Dr SP Vinayak, Patna’s district immunisation officer.
The 17 special vaccination centres in Patna, set up in May and June, had administered 9,02,277 doses of the 13,61,533 doses till Saturday. Of this, the three vaccination centres at the Patliputra Sports Complex, Patliputra Ashok Hotel and the Government Polytechnic College in Patliputra that operate 24x7, accounted for 41% (3,70,845 doses). These three centres are managed by Care India, which provides technical support to the state government in implementation of the health programme.
Patna had 262 vaccination sessions on Saturday.
“There is no hesitancy anywhere now. People from rural areas are calling up our field officers to know about the availability of vaccines in their respective areas. Now that we have almost saturated the urban areas, we shall turn our attention to vaccination in rural areas from August 10,” said Singh, in response to the vaccine hesitancy in rural areas, which had led to low first-dose coverage (33%).
“In addition to the 86 “Teeka Express” or mobile vaccine vans, we have four special vans, which will have vaccinators, data-entry operators as well as artistes to perform “nukkad-natak” or street plays to sensitise people about vaccination in a handful of remote areas where people are delaying taking their jabs. In addition, we will also take help from NGOs working in those areas,” he added.
Though chief minister Nitish Kumar has set a target for his officers to complete Covid-19 vaccination in the state by December, Patna hopes to do it before the given deadline, subject to availability of vaccines.
