BENGALURU: Vaccination is the only way to keep Covid-19 away, Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar has said, adding that the State Government is determined to fully-vaccinate everyone by December. Speaking to reporters after flagging off a special vaccination drive at the State Bar Council on Thursday, Dr Sudhakar said that the government has taken steps to vaccinate 1 lakh advocates and their families. “It is being given on priority to professionals who are in contact with more people… If we want to be mask free, then everyone should be vaccinated at the earliest,” he said.
“It is because of the stringent measures of the government that mortality rate has reduced during the second wave though there was a surge in cases than expected. Backlog vacancies of 1,760 medical officers have been filled which were due from the last 25 years. We are strengthening the health sector at district level to tackle the third wave based on the recommendations of the committee headed by Dr Devi Shetty,” the minister said.
Some people are spreading rumours about vaccines on social media. People tend to believe such information, he said, urging people to trust only authenticated information from government sources. “As in the case of smallpox, people took many years to trust the vaccine. The Hepatitis-B vaccine took 20 years to arrive in India but we were fast enough to invent the vaccine for Covid-19. We should be proud that it has been invented in our country,” he said, adding that foreign vaccines are expensive but PM Narendra Modi is providing the indigenous vaccine free of cost.