The state health department has decided to launch a door-to-door survey across Kolkata and in the districts to identify unvaccinated people or those who have taken one dose of the Covid vaccine.
A recent letter from health secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam to the commissioner of Kolkata Municipal Corporation and all district magistrates said “stress should be laid on house to house vaccination for covering the left-out beneficiaries early”.
While the outreach programme has begun in Kolkata, the chief medical officers of health (CMOH) in the districts have decided to deploy accredited social health activists (ASHAs) to visit each house across blocks. Once the survey is complete, reports from each block will be compiled and a final one drawn up and sent to Swasthya Bhavan.
“This will run parallel to an awareness drive to maintain physical distance, wear masks and continue using sanitisers for safety,” said a senior health department official in North 24-Parganas.
In the letter, Nigam has urged officials to arrange special programmes to cover the section of the population who may be migrating between districts because this is harvesting season in Bengal.
“The idea is to bring as many people as possible under the Covid vaccination programme. We have an adequate stock of vaccines now,” Ajay Chakraborty, the state’s director of health services, told The Telegraph.
“Reaching the last mile in any programme is always a challenge. There is a certain population who are averse to completing their vaccination and our efforts now are directed towards mobilising more personnel to complete this programme,” he said.
Senior officials in the health department said around 2 crores of vaccine doses were available with the state right now and the Union ministry of health and family welfare has assured that fresh supply will reach within days of requisition for vaccine.
