New Delhi: Experts from India's health domain on Wednesday suggested the central government to utilise all resource places to intensify the ongoing vaccination process.
The experts have admitted that the vaccination process was very poor in the initial stage.
Ever since the Covid-19 vaccination process was started on January 16, as many as 8.83 crore doses have been administered across the country.
"We have to adopt different innovative strategies for vaccination. We have more than 540 medical colleges and 60 postgraduate medical colleges. Every college has its own outreach. They should be assigned to bring people of respective age group to their centre for immunisation," said Dr Sunila Garg, senior advisor at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
Although the vaccine administration registered a poor percentage in the initial stage, now it has picked up momentum, she said.
"We got two vaccines with good efficacy. Initially, the vaccination process was slow following the fact that people had vaccine hesitancy. People were hesitant to take the vaccine over their possible side effects and all," added Dr Garg.
On Wednesday, 13.14 lakh vaccine doses have been administered to the beneficiaries.
The Union Health Ministry, however, found that states and UTs like Maharastra, Punjab and Delhi have recorded low number of vaccination.
The minister dashed three different letters to these states to accelerate their vaccination process.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Dr Tamorish Kole, president of the Asian Society for Emergency Medicine also said that vaccine hesitancy was the main reason for poor vaccination.
"Despite having a digital app to register, there is a slow pace of vaccination at the initial phase. Hopefully, in view of the current situation of Covid surge, every eligible citizen will turn up for vaccination now," said Dr Kole.
Referring to the recent upsurge, Dr Kole suggested that vaccine should be given to as many people as possible.
"There should be strong test, trace and treat strategy. The mass gathering should be stopped. At the same time, Covid appropriate behaviour should be ensured," added Dr Kole.
Experts said that the second wave of Covid in India is spreading faster. Incidents indicate that youngsters, children and pregnant women are also getting infected in the current surge of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhusan has sent a letter to all states and UTs asking them to ensure vaccination in the workplace.
In his letter dashed to chief secretaries and secretaries (health), Bhushan also suggested them to initiate due consultations with private and public sector employers and management to prepare for the launch of workplace vaccination from April 11.
The health ministry has also sent guidelines for using the workplace as vaccine centres.
"The district task force chaired by the district magistrate and urban task force chaired by the municipal commissioner will identify such government and private workplace after due deliberations with relevant employers," the guidelines issued in this direction said.
It said that only employees of workplace aged 45 years or more will be eligible for vaccination at workplace. "No outsiders including eligible family members will be allowed for vaccination at workplace," the health ministry said in its guidelines.
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