The State Health Department is planning to rope in local religious leaders and village heads to encourage the villagers to take the Covid-19 vaccine as the turnout in rural areas is low. The Health Department has directed district administrations in tribal areas to include village heads and local religious leaders such as mankis, mundas, pahan and other religious gurus to be a part of the drive creating awareness about vaccination in tribal areas.
Lohardaga Deputy Commissioner, Dilip Kumar Toppo said, “The district administration with the help of religious leaders such as village pahan , priest from church and maulvis are creating awareness about vaccination in the district.” “Maulvis have even made announcements from Mosques and the Church has urged people for vaccination, clearing the myth and misconception about any side effects of vaccination,” added Toppo.
The Lohardaga district population is around 4.61 lakh out of which only 75,000 people have taken vaccine doses which is around 22 per cent of total population. Sources said that in Lohardaga district the maximum fear and resentment about vaccination is among tribal and Muslim community. The tribal population in Lohardaga district is around 60 per cent while the minority community comprises 19 percent of population.
The resentment and lack of awareness about vaccination among these (tribal and Muslim) communities can be gauged from the fact that few days back a district administration team has to face strong resentment from villagers. The villagers are not willing for vaccination as they claim that after vaccination people get fever and many times it also becomes fatal.
However, the BDOs and medical officers have been directed to draw up a micro-plan for each and every village for creating awareness and motivating the locals to visit the vaccination centres. Lack of awareness about vaccination is also in other districts such as East and West Singhbhum, Khunti, Chaibasa, Gumla and other districts.
A senior officer at East Singhbhum requesting anonymity said, “Village heads such as mankis, mundas, parganeth and religious gurus have influence among the villagers. We have urged the BDOs to ensure that these groups of people take the jabs before others so that they can help us in achieving our target in the villages."
“We will take the help of the panchayat-level public representatives in our awareness campaign & our mobile vaccination team will also visit those villages that have performed badly so far,” added the officer.
According to Parish Priest of Chandwa in Latehar, Father George Monipally, the Latehar Parish Priest died in this second surge of the Coronavirus and now the second in command there in the Latehar Parish Fr Mukti Prakash has issued an appeal to people to take the jab.
George Monipally said, “This is no little thing to urge people to take the jab when there is a loss of our own Parish Priest in the Covid infection.”
Myths and rumours associated with the vaccine that are prevalent in villages are one of the reasons preventing the villagers from taking the shots.
In view of the infection of the second wave of Corona and the third wave, the Women's Doctors Wing, IMA Jharkhand and the Health Department organized an online awareness campaign on Friday. The campaign was launched by Health Minister Banna Gupta and Health Secretary Arun Kumar Singh. Expert doctors from the country and abroad participated in it. The experts cleared various misconceptions about vaccinations.