Telangana’s efforts to fight vaccine hesitancy pay off

Hyderabad: The State government’s efforts to encourage people to get vaccinated and the reporting of new Covid variant Omicron, appears to have yielded results with unvaccinated individuals turning up in sizeable numbers to get Covid jabs, Director of Public Health (DPH), Dr G Srinivasa Rao here on Sunday, said. “After two to three weeks, for […]

Hyderabad: The State government’s efforts to encourage people to get vaccinated and the reporting of new Covid variant Omicron, appears to have yielded results with unvaccinated individuals turning up in sizeable numbers to get Covid jabs, Director of Public Health (DPH), Dr G Srinivasa Rao here on Sunday, said.

“After two to three weeks, for the first time on Saturday, we managed to vaccinate 3.14 lakh individuals on a single day. Although it’s very early, I believe this is an encouraging sign. People have realised the urgency of the situation,” he said.

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23.27 lakh still unvaxxed

At present, there are still 23.27 lakh individuals in Telangana who have not yet received a single dose of Covid vaccine. In addition, there are nearly 80 lakh individuals in Telangana who are due to get the second dose of Covid vaccine by December- end.

“We are going all out to administer Covid vaccines to all the eligible persons in Telangana in December. The focus is on districts like Adilabad, Narayanpet, Vikarabad, Jogulamba Gadwal and Komaram Bheem Asifabad where the percentage of second dose vaccination is less than 25,” Dr Rao said.

There are 2.76 crore eligible individuals above 18 years who have to receive both the doses of Covid vaccine. So far, 2.54 crore first doses of Covid vaccines have been administered, which means 92 per cent of eligible persons have received the first dose. A total of 1.33 crore individuals also have received the second dose, which is 48 per cent of eligible persons.

“By the end of December, we want to reach 100 per cent administration of first dose vaccine and at least 65 per cent to 70 per cent of the second dose of Covid vaccines,” the senior public health official said.