Jharkhand has fullt vaccinated over a crore residents, but is racing against time to achieve 100 per cent coverage by January 15, 2022, the deadline fixed by the health department.

According to the latest bulletin, out of 2,41,21,312 eligible beneficiaries, 1,00,05,687 have received both doses, which is 41 per cent of the target. The number of people with the first dose stand at 1,77,68,657 which works out to 74 per cent. Among the districts, East Singbhum has done the best with vaccines, recording 58 per cent coverage.

The remaining 23 districts are in the red-category, having vaccinated less than half of their respective populations. East Singbhum is in the pink category as its vaccine coverage is in the range of 50-60 per cent.

Amid the growing scare of the Omicron variant of Sars-Cov2, the health department has been running a month-long vaccination drive across districts from December 15 to achieve 100 per cent coverage. But, Covid-19 cases are again witnessing an upward trend.

On Monday, as many as 32 new cases surfaced in the state with Koderma alone reporting 12, taking the state's count of active cases to 159.

“On November 30, active cases in the state were 98 but in less than a month, it has now touched 159. In Ranchi, it has more than doubled. On November 30, we had 33 active cases, but currently the numbers stand at 76. Testing has been stepped up leading to detection of more cases, but the only way to fight Covid is aggressive vaccination,” remarked an official at the sadar hospital.

Another official maintained that one of the key reasons behind the poor second dose coverage is Jharkhand's migratory population and the lack of real-time data.

“In Jhrkhand, Covishield has been used a lot more than Covaxin. The gap between the first and second doses of Covishield is 84 days. Since travel curbs were lifted months ago, whoever may have taken the first dose of Covishield here, may have migrated to other states for employment purposes. These people may have got the second dose elsewhere. But that data may not be reflecting in the state’s overall vaccination count,” he explained.

A woman health official in Seraikela-Kharsawan added, “Our first dose coverage is 73 per cent. But our second dose is at a paltry 33 per cent. We are discovering that many who took their first dose in Adityapur were from Jamshedpur (in neighbouring East Singhbhum) and received the second dose in their home district. Both places are only a few kilometers apart.”

Garhwa civil surgeon Kamlesh Kumar too was of the similar opinion stating that they have begun door-to-door surveys using electoral rolls to ascertain the actual number of vaccinated people in the district.