The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to speed up the Covid-19 vaccination drive, targeting to complete vaccination for one crore population in the next 4-5 weeks. During the review meeting held on the Covid-19 vaccination plan at the camp office here on Wednesday, Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy directed officials to start the vaccination process in urban areas from March 29 (Monday). He directed to similarly take up as a pilot project in rural areas, limiting to two villages per day in each mandal by working four days a week.
Interacting with officials, the Chief Minister said that there are only six days left in the election process of Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituency (MPTC) and Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC) polls and if the elections wind up, the efforts can be focused on vaccination. He said it was quite uncertain when the polls would be over and that is leaving the workforce in dilemma and causing a lot of anguish. He directed officials to expedite the vaccination process and take it up “like a yagna to save people’s lives”.
The Chief Minister instructed the officials to implement the vaccination drive in the villages as a full-fledged activity involving village, ward secretariats, volunteers, Asha workers, and health workers. He suggested the officials to take up awareness campaigns, ensuring that all the people get vaccinated without any fear.
The CM also emphasised on Village Doctor Concept and directed the authorities to implement it at the earliest possible. He ordered the authorities to make sure that there is no shortage of doctors in PHCs, that each mandal should have two PHCs, and each PHC should have two physicians. Similarly, each mandal should have two 104 vehicles with one doctor in each vehicle, he said, adding that there should be six doctors in every mandal visiting every village thrice every month.
He directed to hire doctors as per requirement and told the finance department officials not to be negligent in disbursing the required funds. The officials said 3.97 lakh health and frontline workers, 59.08 lakh people who are either over the age of 60 or above 45 with comorbidities, are yet to be vaccinated. They said the Central government has decided to provide the vaccine to all those over the age of 45 from 1 April.
The CM directed the officials to make all necessary arrangements to expedite the process and complete vaccination for one crore population. In regard to this, he told the officials to carry out vaccinations by selecting two villages each day and covering eight villages per week across the state.