Union Health Secretary Advises States And Union Territories To Increase COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage Percentage

New Delhi: Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Thursday (January 28) advised states and union territories to increase the percentage coverage of COVID-19 vaccine beneficiaries and optimize sessions per day. According to a statement, the Health Secretary, while reviewing the status of vaccination with Health Secretaries and National Health Mission MDs through video conference, pointed out that the COVID-19 vaccine is available in sufficient quantity and technical glitches on the CoWIN app have now been resolved.

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While some States and UTs have more than 50 per cent coverage, they were all advised to improve the percentage coverage of vaccinated beneficiaries as there are many States and UTs that need to improve their performance on this parameter, the statement said.

States/UTs have also been advised to ensure that regular review meetings of the State, District and Block Task Force were held to assess the emerging challenges and promptly address ground issues.

“There is a huge scope for improvement in the number of average vaccinations per session,” Mr Bhushan said and asked states and UTs to analyze the daily variation in the number of average vaccination and take the necessary steps to increase them. States/UTs were also asked to organize multiple simultaneous vaccination sessions per day in the health facility to boost the number of vaccinations per day.

The Health Secretary also elaborated on the global landmarks crossed by India and underlined that India is the fastest country to reach not only the one million target but also two million and three million marks in COVID19 vaccination. He further pointed out that a provisional digital vaccination certificate after the first dose and final certificate after completing the second dose is required to be issued, and necessary steps should be taken to ensure that vaccination certificates are before beneficiaries exit the session.

Also Read: Ministry Of Health Issues Guidelines To States, Union Territories To Ensure No Wastage Of COVID Vaccines

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

NDTV – Dettol Banega Swasth India campaign is an extension of the five-year-old Banega Swachh India initiative helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. It aims to spread awareness about critical health issues facing the country. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign highlights the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children to prevent maternal and child mortality, fight malnutrition, stunting, wasting, anaemia and disease prevention through vaccines. Importance of programmes like Public Distribution System (PDS), Mid-day Meal Scheme, POSHAN Abhiyan and the role of Aganwadis and ASHA workers are also covered. Only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and become a Swasth or healthy India. The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene.