Bengaluru Urban first among districts, Karnataka second among states in nationwide Covid vaccine drive

Karnataka on Monday administered a whopping 10.36 lakh jabs in a single day as part of a mega vaccination drive undertaken by the state. This is the second-highest in the country, after Madhya Pradesh, which administered 14.71 lakh doses, according to Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar.

Among the districts, Bengaluru Urban topped the country with 2,14,709 lakh vaccinations, followed by Indore in Madhya Pradesh with 1.86 lakh jabs. The state had set a conservative target of seven lakh doses for itself, for Monday’s vaccination drive.

Out of this, 1,62,78,437 people have received the first dose accounting for 23.16% of the state’s seven crore population and 33,07,968 have received the second dose (4.7% of the total population). By 7:41 pm on Monday, as many as 10,36,523 doses were administered across Karnataka.

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The top five districts that conducted vaccination include BBMP (1,68,957), Belagavi (79,020), Ballari (58,856), Tumakuru (50,816), and Mandya (50,524). The BBMP, which had set a target of a mere 65,000 doses for itself, administered as many as 1.55 lakh doses with 25,000 odd doses being administered by the private hospitals in the city.

BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta said, “We had undertaken several local awareness drives including door-to-door visits and calling up beneficiaries. We spoke to all the stakeholders in the priority groups to assemble them at the worksites on time. Vaccinator numbers were also doubled. A lot of doctors were drafted in from other departments of government hospitals not under our ambit to help us with this one-day drive. It required a lot of effort from health officers on
the ground.”

D Randeep, Special Commissioner (Health), BBMP said, “A total of 1,55,753 doses were administered in Bengaluru till 5.45 pm. This includes 1,30,034 by BBMP (85%) and 25,719 by private organisations (15%). All this was achieved with a single day of planning. We identified two or three people in each ward who can mobilise people and bring them to the vaccination site.” The previous highest vaccination record in Bengaluru was reported on June 4 with 1.17 lakh vaccinations.

As many as 528 vaccinators, along with a verifier, were deployed for the day from the BBMP. In addition, volunteer vaccinators were mobilised from various nursing colleges. Several workplace sites were supported with in-house vaccinators too.

For the first time, a stock of 1,87,000 vaccine doses was supplied to the BBMP. The total vaccines distributed to government vaccination centres in the city were 1,44,000 doses of Covishield and 43,000 doses of Covaxin. Session sites were increased from a daily average of 300 to 528 which included 160 sites in urban primary health centres and general hospitals and 368 sites in workplace session sites.

Regular field visits were conducted throughout the day by eight zonal health officers and 28 health officers to monitor the performance and support the staff on duty. Beneficiaries from all eligible sectors were also mobilised by around 978 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), and 429 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) working in the field.

The drive was continuously supported by all the elected representatives and various non-governmental organisations throughout the day which played a role in increased vaccination coverage.