Vijayapura: With an objective of intensifying the Covid vaccination drive in the district, mainly in rural areas, the district administration has decided to take up door-to-door programme to vaccinate all eligible people of the rural areas.
The reason behind launching such a campaign is that just about 50% of the population of the rural areas has got vaccines so far. According to the district Department of Health and Family Welfare (DHFW), with 8.95 lakh people getting the first dose, a total of 53 percent of vaccination has been achieved in the district. A whopping 81.76 percent of people dwelling in urban areas and merely 47.73 percent people residing in villages across the district have got vaccinated. A total of 8.95 lakh and 2.26 lakh beneficiaries have got the first and second dose, respectively in the region.
A total of 16,659 health workers have taken the first dose and 12,664 have received the second dose. As many as 27,744 health workers were immunised with the first dose and 17,175 have taken the second dose. Among the 18 to 44 years beneficiaries a total of 4.46 lakh people have taken the first dose and only 32,317 have received the second dose and among 45 to 60 years age group 4.04 lakh beneficiaries have got their first dose and 1.64 lakh got second dose in the district, as per DHFW.
Though the district administration and health authorities are pushing to improve the vaccination rate, the response from the rural areas is not overwhelming. So, in order to improve the vaccination rate, the district administration in collaboration with Zilla Panchayat has planned to launch a door-to-door mobilisation campaign for vaccination, where a Gram Panchayat Task Force consisting of ASHA and Anganwadi workers will motivate the villagers to take the vaccination.
Deputy Commissioner P. Sunil Kumar, pointed that, “We are pushing hard to cover the maximum population in the rural belt but yet to receive good response from the people. We are confident that the door-to-door campaign will give us the expected results for the vaccination programme in villages. On the direction of higher authorities, a vaccination mela is also being organised every Wednesday, where we are receiving good response from the public in the region.”
“We have also identified that the people due with the second dose are not coming forward to take the jabs. So, next week we are completely focusing on vaccinating the people that are due with the second dose. On an average we are receiving 20,000 doses from the government and vaccinating the same number of doses to the beneficiaries in the district.”
“A couple of months ago, we launched a special vaccination drive for the people living in border areas. Under this initiative as many as 6,000 people are being vaccinated everyday in the same region. We will channelise the vaccination rate in the coming days with creating more awareness among the people,” detailed DC Kumar.
According to sources, “Earlier the district used to get a very poor share of allotment in the vaccination when compared to the other districts. However, only after the issue was raised in a meeting that had presence of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai at Almatti Dam on August 21, the district started receiving 20,000 doses everyday.
