Lucknow / June 7, 2021
Even as the top vaccine makers are yet to respond to the global tender floated by the Uttar Pradesh government to procure 40 million doses, the Yogi Adityanath government has set an ambitious target of administering 100 million jabs in the next three months.
So far, the UP government has already breached the milestone of administering 20 million Covid-19 vaccine doses, making it only the second state after Maharashtra to achieve the feat. This cumulative figure includes the record vaccination of 3 million people in the 18-45 years age category.
Further the ‘Mission June’ agenda espoused by UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, wherein the state is targetting to vaccinate 10 million people in the current month of June itself, the government has decided to escalate the target to vaccinate a million people each day in July, thus totaling about 30 million jabs next month.
The target is to administer at least 100 million doses in the next three months, a state government spokesperson said here.
“Till now we have administered more than 20 million doses of coronavirus vaccine. In view of the population size in UP, we have to speed up the vaccination programme and work upon expanding the ‘Mission June’ target by three times in July,” Yogi instructed the high level ‘Team 9’, which has been constituted to tackle the second wave of the pandemic in UP.
So far, India has administered around 228 million vaccine doses, of which UP alone accounts for around 8.9 per cent. The number of vaccines in UP are inching up significantly over the past few days in line with the high targets set by the CM.
“A district-wise strategy should be prepared to meet the target of a million doses a day in July. There is no shortage of vaccines in UP. With the help of the central government, new vaccine alternatives would be made available soon,” Yogi claimed.
Besides, more than 100,000 healthcare professionals would be trained as vaccinators to cater the high volume of targetted inoculations in the coming weeks. This would include nursing students, who would be imparted training before being deployed in the field.
To encourage women to take the vaccines, ‘Special Pink Booths’ (women vaccination camps) have been planned in all the 75 districts of UP. The government has directed the local authorities to set up at least two special booths for women in each district.
This way, 150 ‘Special Pink Booths’ will be set up in all districts, one for the 18+ age category and another for the 45+ years age category among women.
In the recent weeks, the number of fresh cases has dwindled thick and fast in UP, which led the Yogi government to relax the Corona Curfew in those districts, where the number of active cases has dipped below 600. Now only a handful of districts, including Lucknow, are out of the ambit of relaxation.
(Virendra Singh Rawat is a Lucknow based journalist, who writes on contemporary issues of industry, economy, agriculture, infrastructure, budget etc)