Health workers make door-to-door visits as a part of the ongoing Har Ghar Dastak (November 3-30) in Ahthibung Block A & Songngou village under Bongkolong, SC HWC, Peren. (Photo Courtesy @HealthNagaland/Twitter)
Calls for district-wise plan, weekly deployment of State Government officials for mobilization & motivation
Morung Express News
Dimapur | November 22
Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, on November 22, urged the States of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Manipur as well as the Union Territory of Puducherry to launch an aggressive campaign to increase the pace and ensure full COVID-19 inoculation of the adult population.
Mandaviya batted for the same during a virtual review meeting on vaccination progress with health secretaries and senior officials of the Health Department in the three States and the UT, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) informed in a statement.
“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 stated, reiterating that vaccination is the most potent weapon in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the MoHFW, the 3 states and the UT have been reporting low vaccination coverage. “While India’s first dose coverage is at 82% and second dose coverage at 43%, Puducherry (66%,39%), Nagaland (49%,36%), Meghalaya (57%,38%) and Manipur (54%,36%) lag behind from national average in their first and second dose coverage,” it pointed out.
To increase the vaccination, the Minister also urged the States/UT to innovatively rope in all stakeholders including NGOs, faith-based organisations, religious leaders, community influencers and other partners to motivate and mobilise all eligible populations towards full COVID vaccination.
“Let us ensure collectively that no eligible citizen is left without the ‘Suraksha Kawachh’ of COVID-19 vaccine in the country, and to address issues of hesitancy, misinformation, superstition etc,” he added.
‘Deploy all Government officials'
Meanwhile, Dr Mandaviya also advised the States to deploy all State Government officials, one day each week, to visit each eligible household to motivate and mobilise them towards full vaccination, the MoHFW said.
He reiterated the Prime Minister’s mop-up strategies for strengthening the ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ campaign.
These include deploying ‘Prachar Toli’ in advance to villages to ensure mobilisation and counselling of the eligible population along with awareness campaigns, followed by the ‘Vaccination Toli’ to ensure that all eligible citizens are vaccinated with the first and second dose.
Further sharing that he noticed during his recent Arunachal Pradesh that stickers saying ‘Fully Vaccinated Home’ were being used, Dr Mandaviya also called for adopting similar innovative strategies.
He also urged States to make children and students as COVID-19 Vaccination Ambassadors to urge and motivate the elders and eligible members in their families and communities to take both doses of the vaccine.
Preparation of district-wise micro plans
As per the MoHFW’s statement, Dr Mandaviya also exhorted the States to prepare detailed district-wise micro plans, deploy adequate number of teams and to regularly review the daily progress of the low performing districts.
“States were urged to make innovative short videos to address target groups for hesitancy, along with effective use of various social media platforms and traditional media,” it said.
The Union Health Minister engaged with the States/UT to know the specific reasons holding back the wide scaling up of vaccination drive under the ongoing ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ campaign.
He was apprised of the ongoing efforts by the State/UT administration to address issues of hesitancy, it added.
Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary; Dr Manohar Agnani, Addl. Secretary (Health); Dr Sunil Kumar, Director General of Health Services; Indrani Kaushal, Jt. Secretary (Health); Ashok Babu, Jt. Secretary (Health); and other senior officials of the Ministry were present in the meeting.
