Politicians slow down COVID-19 vaccination drive for super-spreaders in Hyderabad
HYDERABAD: Due to interference by party leaders and corporators trying to arrange jabs for their family and friends, the special vaccination drive meant for 'super-spreaders' progressed slowly across the city on Wednesday.
As per the instructions of the government, GHMC had began a vaccination drive for super-spreaders on May 28. The civic body had planned to administer 30,000 jabs to the vendors per day, which mounts to 1,000 jabs per day in each circle.
The count of Covid-19 vaccine doses in the last six days is 21,666 on May 28, 22,399 on May 29, 22,603 on May 30, 24,897 on May 31, 27,117 on June 1 and 21,946 on June 2. GHMC has aimed to vaccinate as many as 3 lakh super-spreaders in its limits till June 6.
However, the civic body couldn’t achieve its target on Wednesday due to misuse of tokens by leaders and corporators. Till June 2, GHMC administered vaccines to 1,40,628 persons, as against the target of 1,80,000. It is challenging for the civic body to vaccinate nearly 1.6 lakh people during the remaining four days of the drive.
GHMC has been administering the vaccine shots at 30 vaccination centres in each circle of all six zones for LPG delivery staff, petrol pump workers, vendors in Rythu Bazaars, fruit, vegetable and flower markets, kirana shops, liquor shops and non-vegetarian markets.
To avoid any irregularities in the coming days, GHMC has decided to offer e-coupons to eligible people from Wednesday. This is to make sure that only people of high-risk category are provided with free vaccines, and to avoid distribution of physical coupons. For this, GHMC staff will go to vendors and enrol their details, after which eligible persons will receive a message which they have to show at the vaccination centres to avail the shot.