PRINCE KUMAR
Ranchi, Dec 22: Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s aspiration to achieve 100% vaccine coverage by January 15 across the state is at stake as 23 districts of the state are in the red category with below 50% coverage.
East Singhbhum has vaccinated the highest number of beneficiaries with the Covid-19 vaccine in the state. As per the state health department’s latest vaccination data on December 21, out of 16,77,341 estimated beneficiaries in East Singhbhum, so far 9,90,559 received their second dose (59%).
With 34% coverage, Chatra and Garhwa are the last of all the districts and Giridih is only a notch (35%) better than it. Other districts with below 40% coverage of the second dose include Dhanbad, Jamtara, Latehar, Pakur, Sahebganj, Saraikela Kharsawan and West Singhbhum. Those below 50% include Bokaro, Deoghar, Dumka, Godda, Gumla, Hazaribagh, Khunti, Koderma, Loherdaga, Palamu, Ramgarh and Ranchi.
Last week, the health department began colour coding all the districts based on their daily coverage. Below 50% is coded red, pink is between 50-60%, 60-70% is orange, 70-80% is yellow, 80-90% is light green and more than 90% is dark green.
While Jharkhand has rolled out a month-long drive since December 16 to achieve 100% coverage by mid-January next year, health workers on the ground are unsure about achieving it.
Health officials have attributed the migratory population, lack of proper logistics and manpower and a certain degree of hesitancy still prevalent among a section of the illiterate population as key reasons for the slow rate.
Additional Chief Secretary of Department of Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare Arun Kumar Singh said that actions will be taken against those districts that are unable to achieve the target of 100% vaccination by the prescribed guidelines.
“All kinds of support are provided to each and every district and several measures and actions have also been taken to achieve the 100% coverage,” Singh said.
