November 03
PM to Take the Vaccination Campaign to Each Door
PM Narendra Modi interacted with District Magistrates of over 40 districts in Jharkhand, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, and other States with districts having low vaccination coverage. He did review meeting with districts
Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a review meeting with districts having less than 50% coverage of the first dose and low coverage of the second dose of Covid vaccine.
The District Magistrates highlighted issues like rumours resulting in vaccine hesitancy, difficult terrain, challenges created due to prevailing weather conditions in recent months, which caused low vaccination coverage
PM spoke about maximising community engagement through religious and community leaders. He exhorted all officials to ensure that the country widens its vaccination coverage by the end of the year and enters the new year with renewed self belief and confidence.
The Prime Minister touched upon the issue of rumours and misunderstanding about vaccination. He suggested awareness is the only solution for this and asked the state officials to take help from the religious leaders.
Modi recalled his meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, a few days ago. He urged for a special emphasis on taking the message of religious leaders on vaccines to the public.
The Prime Minister asked the officials to change gears from arrangements made for taking people to the vaccination center and for safe vaccination to administering vaccines from door to door. He urged the health workers to reach every house with passion ‘har ghar tika, ghar ghar tika’ – Vaccine at every doorstep.
He also asked to go in the spirit of ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ knocking on every doorstep to ensure full vaccination. “Now we are preparing to take the vaccination campaign to each household. With the mantra of ‘Har Ghar Dastak’, knock on every door, every household lacking the security net of a double dose of vaccine will be approached” he said.
The Prime Minister cautioned that while knocking on every house, equal attention needed to be paid to the second dose as well as the first dose. Because whenever the cases of infection start decreasing, sometimes the feeling of urgency decreases. The urgency in administering the vaccines comes down among the people. “You will have to contact those people who have not taken the second dose despite the stipulated time on a priority basis…ignoring this has created problems for many countries in the world” he alerted.
The Prime Minister emphasized that under the Free Vaccine for all campaign, India created a record of administering about 2.5 crore vaccine doses in a day, this feat bears testimony to India’s capabilities, he said.
He asked the district officials to learn from good practices of their colleagues in better performing districts and emphasized approaches suitable for the local needs and the environment should be adopted.
