COVID Vaccination Drive of 18+ From Today in Assam

COVID-19 tests yet to pick up pace

STAFF REPORTER GUWAHATI:

COVID Vaccination Drive for 18+ in Assam: The vaccination drive for the 18+ population of the State will start officially at the government level from Friday. Each of the 34 districts in the State has been divided into zones for smooth conduct of the drive.

Greater Guwahati has been divided into four zones – Capital Zone, East Zone, West Zone and Dhirenpara Zone. The four zones together have 25 vaccination centres exclusively for 18+ people.

As of today, the Department has 1.50 lakh vaccination doses for 18+ people with it. Another consignment of vaccines is set to arrive in the State shortly for this group of people.

According to official sources, till Thursday 3.25 lakh vaccines meant for 45+ people are available in the State.

Meanwhile, private hospitals and nursing homes have not been given the vaccines for 18+ people. This is not all. They haven't been getting any supply of the vaccines meant for 45+ as well since April 30, 2021.

So far, a total of 21.75 lakh 45+ people in the State received the first dose of the vaccine and 6.08 lakh got the second dose. Even though the State government claims to have adequate stocks of vaccines with it, every vaccination centre witnesses overcrowding. People are seen to wait for 2-4 days to get vaccinated after the registration of their names. Overcrowding in vaccination centres is an ideal condition under which the virus can spread fast. The shortage of manpower seems to have affected the vaccination drive in the State.

Talking to The Sentinel, the authority of a private hospital said, "We haven't received any guidelines for the procurement of the vaccines meant for the 18+ people. We're in the dark if we'll have to procure such vaccines directly from the manufacturers or the government.

"Let alone the vaccines for 18+ people, we haven't been getting the supply of any vaccines meant for the 45+ people since April 30, 2021. We're receiving calls from those who need the second dose of vaccines."

A few days back, the State Health Department said that a COVID screening centre would be set up in each of the 31 wards in Guwahati and that such centres would work till 9 pm. However, that's yet to be a reality.

In the past ten days as many as 12,846 COVID positive cases were detected in Kamrup (M) district alone. While 2,882 positive cases were detected in Dibrugarh district during the period, 2,264 cases were detected in Kamrup district.

The pace of COVID tests in the State has not been as expected. Even though the Department said to conduct at least one lakh COVID tests per day in the State, in the past ten days 40,000 to 50,000 tests were conducted daily.

Since 2020 when the COVID-19 was first detected in Assam as many as 88.45 lakh COVID tests were conducted in the State till Wednesday. While 2.72 lakh of the 88.45 lakh tested positive, 2.40 lakh of them recovered from the virus.

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