Karnataka long way from completing Covid vaccinations, to miss year-end target

Though the state government had announced earlier this year that Covid-19 vaccination would be wrapped up by the end of the year, data shows that it is still a long way from achieving this goal.

In August, Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar had said that the government’s aim is to “fully vaccinate the entire eligible population by the end of December”.

With the year-end milestone now looming, the data is unequivocal: while first dose coverage had reached 96.89 per cent as of Saturday afternoon, second dose coverage was 75.96 per cent. More alarmingly, about 3.1 per cent of the population has not even been inoculated even once. These include some 1.34 lakh healthcare workers and 54.1 lakh people aged 18 to 44.

Meanwhile, district officials affirmed that hesitancy is still a factor. Kalaburagi is at the bottom with a 95 per cent first-dose and 62 per cent second-dose coverage. “Our second-dose numbers are low because it took a long time to build up our first-dose numbers due to vaccine hesitancy,” explained Dr Sharanabasappa Ganajalkhed, Kalaburagi district health officer.

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“This means that many people are still ineligible for the second dose,” he added. The district has about one lakh people eligible for a second dose and 5 per cent yet to take a first dose.

“We are trying to get influencers to convince people, especially in villages. The holdouts are a mixed group and they vary from village-to-village,” Dr Ganajalkhed said.

Even the performance of the top five coverage districts has been relatively tepid. Among them is Kodagu which has an adult population of four lakh (the lowest of any district in the state). Despite this advantage, it has been unable to wrap up vaccinations. As of Saturday, while its first-dose coverage was 100 per cent, it still had only reached 92 per cent second-dose coverage.

“The problem with this district is that although the population is small, the area is vast,” said DHO Dr Venkatesh, clarifying that ASHA workers were finding it difficult to cover ground during house-to-house visits intended to reduce vaccine hesitancy.

Raichur district is the second from last. Officials here said migration and agriculture are impediments. “Most working-age people go for agricultural work early in the morning, after which time, they become unreachable,” a district official said, clarifying that in the 18 to 44 age group, 92 per cent have had a first dose while 58 per cent have a second
dose

“Hesitancy is a major problem in the above 60 age group where 86 per cent have a first dose while 67 per cent have a second dose,” the official added.

The Health Minister attributed the delay to people not coming forward to finish their dosage after the second wave subsided due to negligence or complacency thinking the worst was over. “But after we started the door-to-door campaign, the coverage increased significantly. However, we should be able to achieve 100 per cent double-dose coverage in the next 1-2 months,” he said.

“As far as stock is concerned, we have an inventory of about 63.87 lakh doses including about 57 lakh doses in districts,” he said.

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