SHILLONG/NEW DELHI, Nov 22: The Meghalaya government is hopeful of achieving 100% vaccination in the state before Christmas.
“We would like to see all adults get the first dose before Christmas. This is the target we are trying to achieve,” National Health Mission’s (NHM) mission director, Ram Kumar told reporters here on Monday.
He said the health department should be able to attain a comfortable percentage before Christmas and may even touch 100% as sought by Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma.
Stating that the achievement in South Garo Hills has given the department the confidence to be able to reach the target or every doorstep at least once, Kumar said about 2.5 lakh people are due for the second dose since the vaccination drive picked up between June and July.
The Chief Minister had earlier asked the district authorities to try and achieve 100% vaccination before Christmas in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision.
Senior health officials on Monday attended a review meeting with Union Health Minister, Mansukh Mandaviya regarding the vaccination status in the state. Kumar said the headcount and electoral count of the vaccinated people work out to 65% and 57% of the total adult population in the state respectively.
He said districts such as South West Garo Hills and East Jaintia Hills have done very well with almost 80% vaccination.
“The urban areas are doing well while the rural areas have fallen behind in terms of vaccination. It was difficult to reach out to the people during the monsoon. After the review meeting today, a meeting was held with the CM who set a target for reaching every household,” the NHM mission director said.
The health department has improved the vaccination rate from 1,400 sessions per week to almost 4,000 in the last couple of weeks. Some 90,000 of the 7 lakh households in the state have been touched, Kumar said.
Earlier, the Union Health Minister stressed on aggressive campaign to increase the pace of vaccination to ensure full inoculation of the adult population. Reiterating that vaccination is the most potent weapon in the fight against the pandemic, Mandaviya urged the states and the Union territory to innovatively rope in all stakeholders, including NGOs, faith-based organisations, religious leaders, community influencers and other partners, to motivate and mobilise all eligible population towards full COVID vaccination.
“We are in the last lap of COVID-19 vaccination. Let us launch aggressive campaign to ensure full COVID-19 vaccination by increasing the pace of vaccination and expanding the coverage,” he told the health secretaries and senior officials of the department from Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland and Puducherry.