Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Apr 17: COVID19 cases are increasing in Dakshina Kannada district. Therefore the district administration has decided to speed up the process of vaccinating the people. Vaccination drives are being undertaken in huge institutions and colleges. In addition, it has also been decided to train health workers, nursing college students etc about the vaccination programme.

So far, 36 percent of the people have been vaccinated against coronavirus. By increasing the process of vaccinating, the administration plans to put a break on the advancing infection.

 
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The goal before the department is to vaccinate 4.17 lac people aged over 45 and two lac people aged over 60. Already 2.22 lac people have been vaccinated. At present, the vaccination programme is progressing satisfactorily. The current target of 4,000 vaccinations a day has been increased to 9,000 from April 13 onwards, said district RCH officer and COVID nodal officer, Dr B V Rajesh.

He said that at the gram panchayat level, NGOs and Yuvaka Sanghas will be involved to spread awareness about the need to get vaccinated. The district has 393 health sub centres, where too arrangements are being made to vaccinate people, In addition, 66 primary health centres, 12 urban primary health centres, four taluk hospitals and six community health centres will be involved with the vaccination programme, he explained.

At present, vaccination is being given in one sub centre under every primary health centre's jurisdiction. From April 13, vaccination is extended to two sub centres under every health centre, he stated, as a result of which 200 sub centres are involved with giving vaccinations.

Out of 8,000 employees of MRPL, 50 percent are aged over 45. As many as 300 workers of KIOCL were vaccinated in three days. In a couple of days, BASF, colleges etc will be contacted and steps will be taken to undertake vaccination drives there, he stated.

Dr Rajesh stated that enough medicine is available in the district and 20,000 doses are currently available which would last three days. More vaccines will arrive within this week and in 15 days, there are chances of the Sputnik vaccines being made available, he added.

Dr Rajesh dismissed the chances of administering different vaccines to people in the first and second doses. He said that such mistakes cannot happen as the information about those who are vaccinated is available in the app.