- Health Minister announced the 3-day nationwide polio immunization drive to start on January 17
- The minister is on a visit to Tamil Nadu to oversee the Covid vaccination drive’s mock drill.
- The second nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive is being held at three-session sites across 33 states and Union Territories.
THD NewsDesk, Chennai: On January 8, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan announced a national immunization drive for polio. The vaccination drive is due to start on January 17 and will last for 3 days.
At the Government General Hospital in Chennai, the health minister said in a statement,
“Three-day national immunization drive for polio will begin on January 17. This is essential to maintain the overall immunity level of our country particularly pertaining to polio”.
“In the next few days, shortly, we should be able to give these vaccines to our countrymen. It will be given to our healthcare professional, followed by frontline workers. I request the NGOs working in the field of health to help in the smooth conduct of the capability vaccination program and mobilization of beneficiaries in the best possible manner”, he added further.
Expressing his belief in India’s capability at successfully carrying out the nationwide immunization drive, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, “In the past year, government and social organizations, scientists, and medical practitioners showed exemplary performance in managing COVID-19 situation. India has the highest recovery rate and the lowest fatality rate. We started the journey with one testing lab, and today we have around 2,300 labs in the country”.
“On January 2, we did a dry run in almost 125 districts in the country. Today, we are doing it across the country except for the three states, which did it earlier… Lakhs of healthcare workers are being trained through these dry runs and the process to train more rollout going on,” Harsh Vardhan stated.
Further, he asked NGOs working in the health sector to assist government medical professionals in a smooth rollout of the vaccine at the grassroots.
The minister is on a visit to Tamil Nadu for supervising the dry run drill for coronavirus vaccination. The purpose of this mock drill is to assess the feasibility of the existing mechanism for the Covid-19 vaccine rollout. Moreover, it would also check the Co-WIN application’s efficiency at planning, implementing, and reporting the immunization drive at the block, district, and state levels.
Source: NDTV
