KASARAGOD: The vaccination drive against Covid for people above 45 years has come to a halt as the district has run out of vaccines.
"The vaccines supplied by the central government are over. There will be no vaccination drive for people above 45 years tomorrow," said district nodal officer for immunisation Dr Muralidhara Nalluraya A on Tuesday.
The Health Department administered the first dose of covid vaccines to around 70% of people above 45 years, he said. "Initially, we were vaccinating around 13,000 people every day. The numbers fell to 4,000 in the past one week," he said.
Dr Nalluraya said the district has around 12,000 people above 45 years from the Scheduled Tribe communities. Of them, around 2,000 persons were administered first and second doses of the vaccine, and 6,900 persons were given the first dose. "We are seeing vaccine hesitancy in some quarters. By the time the next batch of vaccines come, we will have to get the rest of them ready for the vaccines," he said.
The state government has supplied 21,000 doses of vaccines for people in the age group of 18 years to 45 years. The preference is for those with comorbidities. "In the said age bracket, there are around 70,000 persons with comorbidities in Kasaragod. We have got vaccines for one-third of them," said Dr Nalluraya.
But while applying for vaccines on the portal, the majority of them were not uploading the certificate for comorbidities, he said.
In the past two days, the district has vaccinated around 200 persons though 2,800 people have applied. "Instead of the comorbidity certificate, people are uploading their passport photographs or photographs of their limbs or prescription letter. Some people upload their Aadhaar card. There is clearly a lack of awareness among people," said the vaccination officer.
The 'annexure 1(B) form for a certificate for identifying individuals with comorbidities' is available on www.mohfw.gov.in. A search on Google for comorbidities certificate form will fetch the result. "Many people will need help to get that. The form should be filled and signed by a registered medical practitioner of allopathy, ayurveda, homeopathy, unani or traditional medicine," said the officer.
He said of the 2,800 applications, 750 were accepted.
Another problem faced by the health officials was people in northern parts of Kasaragod preferred the Covishield vaccine and not Covaxin. "Maybe because the people work abroad and Covishield is accepted in other countries," said Dr Nalluraya.
Of the 21,000 vaccines supplied by the state government, 15,000 doses are Covishield and 6,000 doses are Covaxin.