SHILLONG, Jan 9: The state’s Principal Secretary of Health, Sampath Kumar, on Sunday said the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) should consider the local
context when it talks about ramping up the vaccination drive for children.
According to the commission, the rate of vaccination for children in Meghalaya is “very low”.
But Kumar said, “We started it on January 3, so they have to understand that it is a process. The schools are also closed. They should take into account the local context.”
He said the drive could have been stepped up if the schools were not given holidays till January 24. The state is faced with the challenges of the Omicron variant of COVID as well as the vaccination drive, he said.
“We have to open the schools especially for vaccination. We are coordinating with the school management committees to open the schools exclusively for administering the vaccines,” Kumar said.
Stating that a review meeting was held on Sunday, he said, “We are making all the plans and the district immunization officers have been told that the younger group is willing to take the vaccines and we should do it faster.”
Earlier, the department was set a two-week target to do the job. The national child rights body had written to the Chief Secretaries of Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur and Punjab, asking them to accelerate the vaccination of children.
The NCPCR had stated that not enough effort has been made to vaccinate children who are the most vulnerable to COVID.
It also wrote that it had come across data that suggested the four states vaccinated only a small number of children.
Prior to the NCPCR’s letter, the vaccination for children in Punjab was a mere 1.3%. It was 1.9% in Meghalaya, 2% in Manipur and 0.6% in Nagaland.
