Finish first Covid-19 vaccine dose for health workers by February 20, Centre tells states

The Union Health Ministry on Saturday asked the states to step up the Covid-19 vaccination drive in order to complete administering at least the first dose of the vaccine for all healthcare workers before February 20 and for all frontline workers by March 6.

At a review meeting, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan urged the states to exponentially increase the pace of vaccination and accelerate the coverage after pointing out that there was substantial scope for improvement in the number of average vaccinations per session.

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So far 52.66 lakh healthcare workers received the vaccine, which is 54.7% of the 96.31 lakh registered healthcare workers. Because of the vaccine hesitancy, only about half of the people who are slated to receive the vaccine, turned up at the sites to receive the jab.

Among the front line workers, only 3.70 lakh received the shots as vaccination for them began earlier this week.

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The Centre plans to inoculate 10 million healthcare workers and 20 million frontline workers in the first round of vaccination before it takes up the more ambitious plan of inoculating 270 million 50 plus Indians and those with serious comorbidity.

At the review meeting, it was decided that the states would finish giving the first shot for the health care workers by February 20 so that a mop-up round could be organised by February 25, said Manohar Agnani, Additional Secretary at the ministry.

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The state health secretaries were asked to analyse the daily variation in the number of average vaccinations and take necessary steps to increase them to ensure 100% saturation of people, who have already been registered on Co-Win digital platform.

They were also asked to organise simultaneous vaccination sessions per day in those health facilities where it would be possible. Each state was advised to devise a state-specific strategy to achieve this target.

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So far 13 states and union territories have vaccinated more than 60% of their total number of healthcare workers but another 12 states and UTs could manage to inoculate only less than 40% of their healthcare workers. Vaccine hesitancy continues even after 20 days as only one-fourth of the people who could have been given the vaccine on Saturday, turned up.

Bhushan also informed the states that an updated version of the software, Co-WIN 2.0, would be released soon to aid in the next phase of vaccination.