BENGALURU: Karnataka Health and Medical Education minister Dr K Sudhakar on Tuesday expressed dismay at the low rate of precautionary doses inoculation among healthcare, frontline workers and senior citizens with co-morbidities.
"Only 39 per cent of them have been vaccinated with the third dose in the State so far. This is unsatisfactory. We will have to cover more people," he said. Since its rollout on January 10, only 3.22 lakh people have received the precaution dose in the State.
According to health department officials, soon reminders will be sent through SMS and hospital heads will be asked to ensure that their eligible staff are given the third dose. National Health Mission director Dr Arundathi Chandrashekar told The New Indian Express, "So far 1.6 lakh health care workers have taken the precautionary dose."
Experts explained that this might be due to vaccine apathy as hordes of people, who were vaccinated, were reinfected and breakthrough infection took place during the third wave. The other reason for low numbers of healthcare workers coming forward could be that many of them are either recovering from a recent COVID-19 infection or are currently in home isolation. This would mean that they will be eligible to take the precautionary shot only after three months.
Sudhakar said that soon a meeting would be held with all the district health officials concerned and private hospitals to ensure that their staff take the precautionary doses.