Odisha meets 100% Covid vaccine target coverage on Day 2

BHUBANESWAR: The state on Monday crossed its vaccination target for the day by strategically contacting more healthcare workers than the intended number to be inoculated. As many 32,526 got the shot against a target of 31,902, with an overall coverage of 102%.
With another consignment of 3.34 lakh doses of Covishield reaching the state on Tuesday, Odisha has enough vaccine to complete the first phase, covering 3.28 lakh healthcare professionals, this month.
Resuming the drive after a one-day break, the health department contacted more than 125% of the targeted healthcare workers for vaccination, anticipating that some may miss the shot for unavoidable reasons while a few may skip it, additional secretary (health) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said. This resulted in the overall vaccination coverage crossing 100%, he said.
Sources said the health department had asked 40,000 of healthcare professionals to come for vaccination at 380 sessions, up from the 161 sessions on the day of the launch. One group of vaccinators has been deployed at each session. Medical colleges and big private hospitals had five sessions each while the district headquarters hospitals, sub-divisional hospitals and community health centres had one or two sessions on Monday.
Without relying on the Co-WIN portal, which was erratic, the district administrations and the institutions got in touch with their targets individually through phone calls and text messages. To be doubly sure that the day’s target is not missed, more people than needed were called at each site and their data was fed in a shared Google Sheets file.
Some districts such as Kendrapada (163%), Bhadrak (136%), Deogarh (126%), Sonepur (125%), Balasore (123%) and Jajpur (121%) exceeded their targets by a long mile. Nuapada district had the lowest coverage of 58%.
Bhubaneswar, too, saw a comparatively lower achievement of 68%. As many 1,947 healthcare workers were given the shot in the state capital, against a target of 2,864 people. A total of 39 sessions were held.
Amid speculation that the low turnout was because Covaxin was being given in the capital, the health authorities said the reason for the low coverage here was difficulties in mobilisation, since there were too many healthcare facilities to coordinate with.
“In tertiary care hospitals, it’s not possible for many professionals to leave duty for even a second,” said a senior government officer.
There were a couple of mild adverse event following immunization (AEFI) in Nabarangpur and Balasore districts.
The recipients in both cases recorded nausea and dizziness. Both are fine, the health authorities said on Monday.
For Tuesday, 192 sessions will be held to vaccinate 16,261 healthcare professionals. The ACS (health) said the target will be low on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so as not to disturb routine immunization and Village Health and Nutrition Day (VHND) activities in the districts.
There will be no vaccination in Angul, Bargarh, Boudh and Gajapati districts on these days.
Services like registration of pregnancy, antenatal care and postnatal care, monitoring and referral of sick children are part of VHND activities at anganwadi centres.
The government, meanwhile, got intimation from the Serum Institute of India, Pune, that it would receive 3,34,500 doses of Covishield vaccine on Tuesday.
The state, which had earlier received 4.08 lakh doses of Covishield and 20,000 doses of Covaxin, can vaccinate all 3.28 lakh registered healthcare workers with this supply, the health authorities said.
The government on Tuesday asked the various districts to complete enlisting of frontline workers such as sarpanches, revenue officials and municipal workers, by January 25 for the second phase of vaccination, said an official source.