BHUBANESWAR : After failing to achieve its target of 90 per cent first dose vaccination by November-end, the State government on Tuesday asked districts to identify unvaccinated population and complete the task before the start of 2022.
The pace of vaccination has slowed down from an average of three lakh doses a day a couple of months back to less than 2.5 lakh now. While around 40.26 lakh people in the State are still unvaccinated, more than 40 lakh are overdue for second dose.
Director of Family Welfare and nodal officer of Covid vaccination Dr Bijay Panigrahi said people were literally fighting to get inoculated when the supply was scarce, but now are not showing interest when the State has enough stock.
“The district task forces have been instructed to monitor the ongoing vaccination drive while the CDMOs were asked to identify the unvaccinated people in villages. After identification, the team will visit and motivate people, especially the elderly and people with comorbidities, to take their shots,” he said.
On the threat over Omicron variant, Dr Panigrahi said people vaccinated against Covid-19 will have defence against the new mutated variant and the unvaccinated will infect others. The severity of the disease will be less if a fully vaccinated person is affected with lower chance of hospitalisation.
Districts bordering Andhra Pradesh have started taking preventive measures following detection of an Omicron case in the neighbouring State. Testing and vaccination have been stepped up in Gajapati, Ganjam, Rayagada and Koraput districts.
Meanwhile, the State reported 175 new cases following a drop in testing from sub-50,000 range to 48,944 in the last 24 hours. The active cases came down to 1,709 after recovery of 192 patients on Tuesday.