Low Covid vaccination coverage: PM Modi to hold review meeting with DMs of over 40 districts on Nov 3

With both doses of vaccination still eluding a large population, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be holding a review meeting on November 3 with district magistrates of over 40 districts with low Covid-19 vaccination coverage in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and North East.

The meeting that will include districts with less than 50% coverage of the first dose and low coverage of the second dose of Covid vaccine, comes days after PM last week had a long meeting with the nation's top vaccine makers and Health Ministry asked states and UTs to share their strategies to enhance second dose coverage and prioritise districts having low coverage for focused action

The Prime Minister will hold this meeting immediately after returning to the country after attending the G20 Summit and COP26.

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During the video conferencing, which will also be attended by Chief Ministers of Jharkhand, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya and other states, Modi will be directly interacting with District Magistrates of over 40 districts as the districts are nodal centres for vaccination strategy.

Earlier, the Health Ministry had asked states and UTs to generate a district-wise list of beneficiaries for the administration of the second dose and advised them to draw district-wise plans involving district magistrates for saturation of beneficiaries.

Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had last week held a meeting with Health Secretaries and Mission Directors of National Health Mission (NHM) of states and UTs and told them that the detailed line-lists of due beneficiaries can be utilized for preparing a district-wise second dose administration plan involving the District Magistrate for execution in a time-bound manner.

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More than 10 crore people in the country have not taken the second dose of the vaccine.

On October 23, Modi had held a detailed meeting with the country's top vaccine makers and exhorted them to strategise furthering vaccine research. In a separate meeting, the Health Ministry had asked the states to enhance second dose coverage and focus on those beneficiaries who are waiting for their second dose after their interval period has been over.

The Union health ministry had also asked the states to explore requirements for mobilisation efforts, addressing local challenges, the need for additional Covid vaccination centres and improving access in rural areas as less than one-third of the total over 100 crore vaccinated people have got the second shot so far.

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