Healthcare workers session will continue till Feb. 20 and mop up till Feb.25; Last chance for first dose missed out registered beneficiaries

Mysore/Mysuru: The administration of second dose of COVID-19 vaccine for healthcare workers will begin across the State from tomorrow. 

As many as 23,295  beneficiaries of the total 32,979 healthcare staff of Mysuru district have taken the first dose of Covishield vaccine since the drive began on Jan. 16. 

A total of 1,246 workers have refused to take the vaccine citing reasons such as allergy, medication and liquor addiction. In the district, 70.9 percent of the staff have been vaccinated in the first round of immunisation. The Health Department Officers held 590 sessions in seven taluks to vaccinate 23,295 workers.

Dr. L. Ravi, Reproductive and Child Health Officer and COVID-19 Immunisation Officer, told SOM that a video-conference was held this morning with Dr. Rajini, Deputy Director (Immunisation) and Dr. Anjana, State Programming Officer (in charge of CoWIN Application) who shared some important details with District Officers. They sought to know district’s preparedness to handle second dose of vaccine to healthcare workers. 

He said, staff working in Vaccination Control Room have been asked to come back to duty immediately to send SMS to beneficiaries about details of venue, date and time of second dose of vaccination by tonight. Most of the staff members are out of town due to two days holiday on account of Second Saturday and Sunday. Now, they were being contacted to come back to duty to make preparation for the second round of vaccine. 

“Now we have to do planning for sessions in all seven taluks and City Hospitals. We will likely complete this work tonight and send SMS to beneficiaries,” Dr. L. Ravi said.

The meeting also decided to fix responsibility on heads of various Departments to insist their staff members to take vaccination without fail. Since the vaccine was not made mandatory, many Government employees were not forthcoming to take it. In the wake of this, heads of all Departments would be strictly instructed to tell their staff members to take vaccine as it was safe, Dr. Ravi said.

Poor achievement: The achievement percentage of vaccinating frontline workers looks like the marks scored by not so intelligent student. Of the total  7,095 employees of Ministry of Home Affairs, only 2,117 have taken vaccination which is about 30 percent. Of the total 4,076 Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs employees, only 968 have been vaccinated (24 percent), out of 1,135 Revenue Department employees, only 228 have taken vaccine and of the total 3,204 Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department, only 444 have taken vaccine which is hardly 14 percent.

Awareness programme: To create confidence about the efficacy of vaccine, Health Department Officers are conducting awareness programme. One such programme was held in Hunsur exclusively for the employees of Department of Fire and Emergency Services. A video was shown to the employees on the importance of vaccine to protect themselves from the contagion.