Bengaluru Rural achieves 100% vaccine coverage

Bengaluru Rural has become the first district in Karnataka to achieve 100% second dose coverage. Eleven districts have achieved over 90% second dose coverage in the state so far.

The district has a population of 8.19 lakh and till 7.30pm on Monday, it had administered 8,19,188 second doses. Although Bangalore Urban district on December 23 achieved 100% second dose coverage, it was excluding the BBMP area.

Bangalore Urban had a target of 10.32 lakh population and it has vaccinated 13 lakh people (134%) with the first dose and 11 lakh with the second dose (110%) so far. However, if considered along with the BBMP area, its second dose coverage is 86%.

Bangalore Rural District Health Officer Dr A Thippeswamy said with a mere 98 vaccination centres, they have far fewer health facilities when compared to their urban counterpart.

“We have 140 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) and 150 staff nurses who act as vaccinators. The 100% second dose coverage was made possible because of them and support from the district administration who deployed more staff when needed when vaccination camps were held,” he said.

Also, cold-calling beneficiaries helped as many had taken first dose in other states or other districts of the state. “We have called every beneficiary asking if they are partially or fully vaccinated, and have updated our database with the information. This helped in 100% second dose coverage,” he said.

He said while they had support from NGOs like Doctors For You, they could not count on private hospitals as the public did not visit these hospitals for vaccination.

“With widespread availability of free Covid vaccine doses, public would not pay Rs 750 for a Covishield dose, so people wouldn’t frequent private hospitals for vaccination. Two major medical college hospitals in the district are MVJ and Akash, which stopped vaccination as there were few takers,” he added.

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