Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has advised all states and union territories to plan for a two-month-long ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ vaccination campaign from June-July.
The objective of the ‘Har Ghar Dastak 2.0’ Abhiyan is to vaccinate and saturate the eligible population groups for first, second, and precaution doses through door-to-door campaigns, with focussed campaigns for old age homes, schools, and colleges including the out of school children, prisons, brick kilns, etc.
Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has flagged the concerns regarding the considerably slow pace of vaccination across states and UTs and has urged them to significantly expedite the pace towards full vaccination coverage by saturating all eligible beneficiaries.
This was communicated to all states and UTs by Union Health Secretary as he reviewed the status of Covid vaccination with Health Secretaries and Mission Directors of states and UTs, through a video conference on Friday.
The sub-optimal coverage of persons aged below 60 years with precaution dose which renders them vulnerable, along with the considerably slower speed of coverage in the 12-14 years cohort was pointed out in the meeting.
States and UTs were urged to undertake effective monitoring with micro-plans based on due lists of all eligible beneficiaries.
Union Health Secretary also stressed a clear and effective communication strategy for increasing the pace of the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination, noting that customized regional communication best practices have yielded appreciable results in vaccination coverage.
Underscoring that the Covid vaccine is a precious national resource, the states were strongly advised to ensure that there is no wastage of vaccines at any cost.
This must be ensured through active monitoring and on basis of the ‘First Expiry First Out’ principle, where doses that expire earlier should be used for vaccination first, advises Bhushan.
