CHANDIGARH: From HCWs, FLWs, senior citizens, students, foreign travelers, registered labours to unregistered labours, Punjab Govt is taking appropriate measures to cover every citizen in the ambit of COVID vaccination and drive has been running in full swing at rural as well as urban areas of State.
Disclosing this here today, the Health Minister Mr. Balbir Singh Sidhu said that data available on Govt portals depicts a valuable picture of achievement made by so far in COVID vaccination. He said that two types of vaccine i.e. COVAXIN and COVASHIELD is available for administration in public, till now, Govt of Punjab has received a quota of 5, 98, 060 COVAXIN doses from Govt of India whereas state purchased quota for COVAXIN is around 1, 50, 850, the utilization of COVAXIN received from GOVT of India is around 4, 90, 041 and 66, 032 doses are administered to public from state purchase Quota. On the same pattern, 48, 16, 580 COVASHIELD vaccine is provided by GOI and 4643786 is utilised.
Mr. Sidhu added that Punjab Government has procured 5, 86, 000 doses of COVASHIELD from which 5, 30, 603 doses have been successfully administered till 13.6.2021. He said that COVID Vaccine is administered under different Categories like HCWs, FLWs , public between 18-45 and People above 45 of age, among all categories total 58, 15, 339 people have received COVID vaccine till now. Vaccination in the age group of 18-44 years has been expended to include students studying abroad, foreign employed persons, shop keepers, workers of hospitality industry, delivery boys etc. The vaccination would be conducted in a campaign ward-wise and village wise
Health Minister further said that positivity rate of period between (17 May-12 June) in Rural and Urban area remained almost same which figured upto 4.4%, the trend depicts that the urban areas with industry or with high population density district like Ludhiana, Amritsar, S.A.S Nagar and Bathinda faced more numbers of COVID cases than rural area whereas rural areas in small districts have high numbers of COVID cases than in urban areas e.g Ropar, Mansa and Muktsar. Last week, all districts logged positivity of less than 5%.
The statics from January to April 2021 indicates that this year population between 21 to 40 years has been affected higher than in other age groups, he said.
Mr. Sidhu divulged that CFR (case fatality) rate remained high in rural areas of Punjab than urban areas in the same period. The trend reversed after mid-May 2021 where CFR in urban areas exceeded rural areas. He said, therefore, all eligible populations need to get vaccinated and focus on IEC/BCC activities is need of the hour for reducing CFR in state.
The Minister said that Civil Surgeons have been instructed to intensify the vaccination drive as the Punjab Government has already asked the GoI to increase the supply of vaccines to meet the set target.