Uttar Pradesh’s vaccination drive to hit top gear with new plan to reach out to recipients

LUCKNOW: With Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath setting big targets for vaccination campaign, the Uttar Pradesh government is set to come up with a revised programme to boost inoculations in the state. The new plan, called cluster approach to Covid-19 vaccination, aims at intensifying public mobilisation in small geographical areas.
Under the new programme, the government plans to use electoral rolls to identify eligible persons and contacting them for vaccination which may come as a game changer.The step will be a major shift from the present approach of ‘people going to the health system rather than the system reaching out to the people’.
The district magistrates across the state have already been informed about the cluster approach and a presentation on the plan was made by health officials in a meeting presided over by the chief secretary a few days ago.
The draft of the cluster approach, pending for approval and formal issuance has been developed with the help of partners including UNICEF, WHO, Rotary, CSOs and NGOs. It envisages division of every development block into several equal parts for focused work and prescribes listing out of available resources like vaccinators and collates the requirement for staff like verifiers and data entry operators.
Thereafter, the strategy prescribes formulation of micro-plans at sub-block level to saturate the unit in a prescribed time.
Speaking on the use of electoral rolls, government sources said there would not be any coercion as vaccination was not mandatory but highly recommended. Advance planning and daily review for identification of left out eligible persons and use of communication teams to convince them would be the salient features of the strategy.
The districts will be covered in a phased manner and those left out would be covered in mop-up rounds. District level officials will deploy additional vaccinators on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
A communication drill will precede the actual vaccination campaign to mobilise people and motivate the reluctant ones. Essential arrangements related to adverse events following immunisation will also be in place.
The steps aim at augmenting the existing recommendations made by the Union ministry of health and family welfare, besides promising to give a shot in the arm to UP’s pace of Covid-19 vaccination. As per available data, over 2.2 crore vaccinations have taken place in UP since the launch of the programme on January 16.
Sessions have been organised for an estimated 125 days since then which translates into an average of 1.76 lakh vaccinations per day.
According to experts, if UP wants to vaccinate its entire eligible population of 13.6 crore people by the end of the year, it needs to increase its daily capacity by nine times.
Launching Mission June, the CM had instructed health department officials to ensure at least one crore vaccinations this month.
In an interview to the TOI, the CM had said that provided UP gets ample stock, the state government would vaccinate 10-12 lakh people per day from July onwards.
He also emphasised that people should understand that vaccine was the most potent tool against coronavirus, especially with the risk of a possible third wave of pandemic.
The CM has also directed officials to make arrangements to vaccinate 10 crore people over the next three months which calls for a pace of vaccination which is way more than nine times of the present level.