Not many takers for door-to-door vax drive

Blurb: Lie about whereabouts, feign suffering from diseases to avoid jab

Karam Prakash

Tribune News Service

Patiala, November 18

Though the Health Department has already initiated the “Har Ghar Dastak” campaign to enhance the Covid-19 vaccination, the coverage is still low.

Health officials, who are going door to door to administer the jab, are said to have continuously been turned down by the beneficiaries on one or the other pretext. It has been learnt that beneficiaries, in the face of steep decline in Covid cases, have become non-serious about inoculation. In some instances, they are even lying about their whereabouts. Some are even found to be feigning one or the other disease to avoid vaccination.

Patiala Civil Surgeon Dr Prince Sodhi said many beneficiaries avoided vaccination, saying they were suffering from viral infections.

A beneficiary who has received only the first dose said: “Since the number of Covid cases is on the decline, there is not much hurry to get the second dose. I will get it whenever I have time.”

It has been learnt that 50 per cent of beneficiaries, despite a lot of persuasion by health officials, did not agree to get the second dose. The Health Department calls them vaccination dropouts.

Dr Veenu Goyal, district immunisation officer, said people were still hesitant to get vaccinated. “Fever and mild stiffness in the arm after getting the jab is normal. Paracetamol tablets are also provided by the Health Department. Therefore, people should stop giving lame excuses and get themselves vaccinated at the earliest,” Goyal said.

Meanwhile, the door-to-door vaccination campaign has been hit by the ongoing protest by ASHA and ANM workers, who are the ones who work at the grassroots level.