M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Jan 4: Vaccination of teens in the age group of 15 to 18 nosedived here in Palamu on the very first day of its countrywide launch on January 3.
Only 809 teens were vaccinated in the entire district when it had 172 covid vaccination sites.
More than 1,41,000 teens are to be vaccinated in Palamu.
Civil surgeon Dr Anil Kumar said he had never believed medical officers in-charge of the community health centres (CHCs) would be performing so poorly. He has asked them to come out of the comatose of complacency.
There is a CHC at Harihurganj which is yards away from Bihar and no teen was vaccinated here.
Under the Harihurganj CHC falls a peripheral health hub at Pipra and here too the teen vaccination was zero on the first day.
Urban areas of Daltonganj have government and private schools every two kilometres. Despite this, only 260 teens could be vaccinated.
Under the Bishrampur CHC fall the health hubs at Pandu, Nawa Bazar and Untari Road and at all these places, no eligible student or adolescent was vaccinated.
Tribal heartland Ramgarh, which has a primary health centre, too went all blank on the front of vaccinating the eligible teens on the first day.
The four Tika expresses here in Palamu too have failed as their collective vaccination on Monday did not cross even 300 mark.
Civil society activists have urged the Additional Chief Secretary (health) Arun Kumar Singh to take stern action against the non-performing medical officers-in-charge of the community health centres as well as the Tika express which is very tardy in achieving even 100 vaccinations a day.
These activists have suggested that the ACS ask DCs to create a pool of doctors who were civil surgeons last year or before but now stand aloof and sidelined because their experiences with the first wave of the Coronavirus could be used to improve the vaccination of teens, health-care workers, and front-line workers, as these last two would be receiving their precautionary dose from January.
