Racing to wrap up first dose of COVID-19 preventive vaccine among 19.73 lakh eligible adult population in city, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) intensified the campaign by undertaking door-to-door survey to deliver doses to citizens at their door steps.
The ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ campaign will continue till November 30 as there seems to be misconceptions among section of population about the vaccine.
NMC has, so far, crossed 17 lakh mark of vaccination and still a lot of ground remains to be covered for which the drive is initiated.
Additional Municipal Commissioner Ram Joshi has appealed to the citizens to avail benefit of the drive and not to fall prey to rumours about any ill effect on health due to vaccine.
Lakhs of people have already taken both the jabs and not a single untoward health issue has erupted among anyone. “For larger benefit of entire population, all the citizens must get inoculated and co-operate with visiting civic teams,” Joshi said in his appeal to the citizens.
Under the campaign, citizens who have taken the first dose will be administered the second dose for which Health Department has sought help from Revenue Department, Police Department, NGOs.
The health teams would start visiting homes and vaccinate people who have still not taken the jab.
Still over one lakh population remains to be covered in the vaccine rollout. About 17,01,634 citizens have taken the first dose while 9,68,308 citizens have taken both the doses.
With government announcing no free vaccine after November 30 :
The ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ campaign will continue till November 30 as there seems to be misconceptions among section of population about the vaccine.
The campaign has been meticulously planned for which ample research is done to identify the beneficiaries who did not turn up for second dose which is overdue.
Along side, civic teams would also visit the localities where vaccine penetration has been quite low and convince citizens about the need to get inoculated.
As part of the campaign, Health Department staff, mainly Asha workers, would visit every citizen’s home and seek consent of family whether they want to be vaccinated.
Apart from this, camps are also planned in the areas where the percentage of vaccination is low. Additional Municipal Commissioner further said that during the drive a survey would be done to identify any COVID-19 suspects or other sick persons by visiting the slums and other such areas of the city.
To speed up the campaign, Asha workers, NGOs and social organisations are asked to explain the importance of vaccination to the citizens and encourage those who have taken the first dose to get the second dose and those who have not taken any dose to get vaccinated fast.
Meanwhile, with warnings about stoppage of free first dose after November 30, civic-run centers have seen surge in people turning for vaccine. So far, 26,69,942 citizens have been vaccinated in city.