Jharkhand is all set to launch a mega vaccination drive across the state from this weekend and has set a target of inoculating at least 18 lakh people in the age group of 45 and above by this month.
Siddharth Tripathi, nodal officer of health department’s IEC wing told the media at a virtual press conference that the mega vaccination drive will begin from Friday. “We aim to vaccinate 1.5 lakh people per day during the mega vaccination camp. To improve the coverage, the state government has decided to run special camps on weekends (Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays) this month in addition to the routine immunisation drives,” he said.
Additional chief secretary of the state health department Arun Kumar Singh has dispatched letters to all deputy commissioners along with district-wise vaccinaion targets to be met in the next four weeks an has directed them to ensure proper facilitation.
Tripathi said the focus of the special drive was mainly on those above 45. Currently, Jharkhand has 10,37,950 doses of vaccines for this age group, 7,57,860 doses of Covidhield and rest Covaxin. There is , however, a massive shortage of doses for the 18-plus group as with the health department saying that it has only 55,350 doses left with them.
In terms of coverage, out of a target of 83,86,677 people in the 45-plus age category, only 24,32,856 have got their first dose so far. This works out to about 29 per cent. For the second dose, out a target of 4,87,162, only 3,82,122 or 78 per cent, have received theirs.
The Ranchi district administration has already begun preparations for the mega vaccination drive. It has zeroed in on Birsa Munda football stadium as the venue of the drive with deputy commissioner Chhavi Ranjan visited the place to oversee arrangements.
“The giant stadium with a capacity of accommodating over 30,000 people will be easy for us to maintain vaccine protocols and maintain proper social distancing. A walk-in system with spot registration has been planned for the weekend special drive. People will be given tokens after registration and asked to await their turn,” said an official who was at the stadium.
Positivity rate
Jharkhand on Wednesday reported a Covid-19 positivity rate of less than 1 per cent for the first time since March as only 532 of the 59,510 people tested were found infected by Coronavirus on the day, figures compiled by the National Health Mission (NHM) highlighted.
The positivity rate in the state on Wednesday was 0.89 per cent. As per records with the state health department, the average daily Covid-19 positivity rate in Jharkhand was close to 10 per cent in April, but it dropped to around 2 per cent in the last week of the month.
Vaccine count
The state on Wednesday administered the first dose of vaccine against Covid-19 to 28,711 residents, while the second dose was administered to 5,842 beneficiaries, stated a separate report from NHM.
