MADIKERI: Despite the acute shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, Kodagu district has achieved 137% target of vaccinating 18+ college students on a priority basis.
A total of 15,815 residents including 14,772 students, 649 teaching staff and 394 non-teaching staff have been inoculated with the first dose of vaccine following a special vaccination drive across the district.
The state department of Colleges and Technical Education had earlier directed the district health department to inoculate 11,483 degree students, teaching and non-teaching staff on a priority basis by July 27.
Special drives to inoculate degree college students were successfully hosted across healthcare centres and colleges, even as the district crossed the set target assigned by the department of education.
“Many native students are studying in colleges outside the district. Hence, we have crossed the set target and vaccinated over 14,000 students,” confirmed an official.
Special vaccination drives were hosted in nearly 33 degree colleges apart from the designated PHCs where vaccine doses were reserved for students.
“We collected reports from the colleges and planned the drive accordingly,” added the official.
Amidst the short supply of vaccines, the district has managed to inoculate students successfully while also being in the news for achieving negative wastage of the vaccine doses.