KOCHI: With concerns raised about the high prevalence of Covid among tribal people in the state, the government has decided to vaccinate the community on a priority basis. According to scheduled tribes development department director P Pugazhendi, the population of tribal communities in the state is around 5 lakh and there are 3.6 lakh people aged above 18 years who need to be vaccinated. The tribal department in association with the health department has provided first dose of the vaccine to around 70,000 community members and half of them have received the second dose also. The department has conducted more than 200 vaccination camps in tribal belts.
“There are 16 mobile vaccination units in the state and we have given instructions to the district administrations to deploy these mobile units for vaccinating the tribal people. The scarcity of vaccine is posing hurdles to the drive. Tribal promoters are helping health teams to identify tribal people and vaccinate them. There is vaccine hesitancy in certain tribal pockets like Adimali and Marayoor. We are trying to convince the tribal heads and allay fears,” said Pugazhendi.
According to the data available with the department, as many as 17,182 tribal people in the state have contracted Covid of which 5,814 are active cases. As many as 145 tribal people have succumbed to the injection. “The rate of infection among them was low during the first wave but there has been a steep rise in number of cases during the past five months. While 35 people died during the first wave, 110 people died of the infection during the second wave,” he said.
As part of the vaccination drive, 2,510 tribal people in Kuttampuzha forest belt in Ernakulam distict were provided the first dose during the the past four days. The drive was launched by the district administration in coordination with the departments of health, tribal welfare and forest. The department had identified 3,104 tribal people of which 100 had already been vaccinated. The teams could not vaccinate the members of Thera colony as 50 of the 104 members of the colony had contracted the disease.