Jharkhand will launch ‘Har Ghar Dastak Tikakaran’, a door-to-door Covid-19 vaccination campaign in all the 24 districts on Tuesday to ensure administration of second jab of vaccines against Covid-19 to such residents who could not take the second dose of injection due to various reasons and the first dose of vaccine to such residents who have not taken even one dose of vaccine, a notification from the National Health Mission (NHM) stated on Monday.
Senior health officials, including those spearheading the Covid-19 immunisation drive in Jharkhand attended a meeting on Monday to plan the course of action for this door-to-door vaccination campaign. As per government records, around 60 per cent of eligible residents in the state have received the first dose of vaccine so far, but hardly 30 per cent of them received the second dose as well.
The vaccination coverage was not 100 per cent even for healthcare and frontline workers. More than 15 per cent healthcare workers and about 20 per cent frontline workers in Jharkhand are yet to get their second jab of vaccine against Covid-19, government records reveal, highlighting that over 30,000 healthcare workers and close to 70,000 frontline workers in the state were only partially protected against SARS-CoV-2 virus.
As per data available on the Co-Win portal, of the 2,08,127 healthcare workers who got the first dose of vaccine, as many as 1,76,635 also got the booster jab. On the other hand, as many as 3,65,222 frontline workers at least got the first jab, and 2,96,694 of them went on to receive the second jab as well.
Government records show that there are 2,09,658 healthcare workers and 3,68,691 frontline workers in Jharkhand for whom vaccines were made available in the first phase of the immunisation drive that began on January 16. Vaccines were made available to senior citizens in the second phase, people in the age bracket of 45 to 60 years in the third phase, and finally, residents above the age of 18 years in the fourth phase.
According to Co-Win data, about 1500 healthcare workers and close to 3500 frontline workers have not even been administered the first dose of vaccine against Covid-19.
“Many healthcare workers and frontline workers also got infected by coronavirus after receiving their first jab, and therefore, their second jab got delayed,” a National Health Mission (NHM) official involved in the vaccination drive said.