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PM to hold review meeting on Nov 3 with districts having low vax coverage

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a review meeting with the districts having low vaccination coverage on November 3 at 12 noon via video conferencing.

The meeting will include districts with less than 50 per cent coverage of the first dose and low coverage of the second rise of Covid-19 vaccine.

The Prime Minister will interact with district magistrates of over 40 districts in Jharkhand, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, and other States with districts having low vaccination coverage, an official release said.

Chief Ministers of these States will also be present on the occasion, the release added.

According to the Health Ministry sources, there are around 48 districts where the first dose coverage among eligible beneficiaries is less than 50 percent.

Vaccine hesitancy, administrative issues and hard-to-reach districts are among main reasons in many districts for the States like Manipur, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh to fall short of the vaccination target. Recently, the Health Ministry had announced the launch of Har Ghar Dastak in the poor performing States/UTs to initiate the door-to-door vaccination campaign in November.

As per sources, there are 6 such districts in Arunachal Pradesh – Kra Daadi, Kurung Kumey, Upper Subansiri, Kamle, Lower Subansiri and East Kameng where the first dose coverage is between 18-42 per cent.

“First of all there is a variation of around 25-30 per cent in the six districts in terms of actual population count and the target given by the Centre as per Census. So technically the target is really higher as many people migrated to Itanagar over the years. Secondly, there is of course vaccine hesitancy among many people. Also, these districts are very remote, difficult and a very little development activity has happened there. Half of the people have also moved to urban cities, so it is very difficult to trace these people,” a source in the know told BusinessLine.

“Efforts are going on to track those who have not yet taken their first dose. We are also trying to figure out those who have not yet approached for their second dose. We are trying to consolidate these numbers in the next two days,” the source further added.

Meanwhile, in Manipur there are 8 districts – Kangokpi, Ukhrul, Kanjong, Senapati, Pherzawl, Tamenglong, Noney, Tamenglong and Tengnoupal, where the first dose vaccination coverage is between 17-43 per cent.

As per the sources, the same issues are there in the States of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland. Coming to Haryana, while there is only one district- Nuh where the vaccination coverage is less than 50 per cent, there are as many as 18 districts where the second dose is as low as 8 per in Nuh.

“In Haryana, though the access is not a hurdle in achieving the target. But because of poor administrative practices, some districts are not able to reach the target. Also, there is a factor of vaccine hesitancy among some people,” one of the highly-placed sources told.

Further, in Assam, the first dose vaccination coverage is more than 85 per cent. As per sources, in most of the districts more than 70 per cent of the target has been achieved. The Hindu BusinessLine

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