Telangana administers 3 cr vaccinations in last four months

Hyderabad: As part of the universal Covid vaccination drive, which has been one of the core containment strategies employed by the State government against the pandemic, Telangana has in the past four months administered a staggering 3 crore Covid vaccines to eligible beneficiaries.

The Covid vaccine administration drive in Telangana was launched a day after last year’s Sankranti festival i.e. on January 16, 2021 and within a year, the government departments have administered a record 5 crore Covid vaccine doses to eligible beneficiaries.

While the initial phases of Covid vaccine administration drive was bogged down by bottlenecks related to the availability of Covid vaccines during the Delta wave and vaccine hesitancy among the beneficiaries, the pace of vaccination has gradually picked up and is underway at a very brisk pace.

It took the health department the first six months of the year to administer first one crore doses of Covid vaccines. By June 29, the health department had administered 1,08,72,157 doses of Covid vaccines. It took just over two more months to administer the next one crore of Covid vaccines and by September 15, a total of 2,04,68,926 vaccine doses were administered. In the next four months, i.e. between September 15 and January 13, various Government departments coordinated to administer a staggering three crore Covid vaccines to eligible beneficiaries.

The State government ensured that not just the State health wing but other line departments including Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD), Panchayat Raj, Police and Education department, were all involved actively in the administration of Covid vaccines.

“Chief Minister, K Chandrashekhar Rao during repeated review meetings made it very clear that vaccination should be our top priority and made it necessary for all the government departments to coordinate and expedite the vaccination drive. Credit must also go to the field level staff for identifying and administering those individuals who had missed out on vaccines,” Health Minister, T Harish Rao, while congratulating authorities on Thursday, said.

One of the major benefits of large scale Covid vaccination in Telangana is the mass immunity developed against SARS-CoV-2.

“We must remember that sero-surveys of ICMR and CCMB had indicated that close to 80 per cent of individuals in Telangana already had natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 virus. Rapid vaccination has ensured that a majority of people here will now have hybrid immunity, which is a combination of vaccine and natural immunity,” senior public health officials have also pointed out.

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