5 Crore people have not received even single dose of vaccine in Uttar Pradesh

Two days back Uttar Pradesh government rebutted a tweet from Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackrey claiming that Maharashtra is the number one state in India in vaccinating over 3 crore population against Covid. The cabinet minister of Uttar Pradesh, Siddharth Nath Singh refuted the claim saying that 3.08 Cr people in UP are fully vaccinated while only 3.01 Cr people had got a double dose of vaccine in Maharashtra.

In this claim and counterclaim, one fact UP government did not tell people is that approximately 5 crore people in UP have not received even a single dose of Covid vaccine to date.

The government released a figure saying close to 13 crore people have either taken single or both doses of Covid vaccine. Of this figure over 3.08 crore, people have taken both doses.

Uttar Pradesh, which is home to 23 crore people, has around 18 crore population which is entitled to get both the vaccines. A senior health official said that there are approximately five crore people in the state of Uttar Pradesh who have not received even a single dose of Covid vaccine.

Covid experts point out that those who have not been vaccinated even with one vaccine, are either those who belong to the hardcore vaccine hesitancy category or those who are a part of the relative hesitancy category.

“The hardcore hesitancy could be because of religious and social reasons and sometimes even political reasons,” said an expert adding that incentive was a good way of breaking the hardcore vaccine hesitancy.

As an incentive, the Lucknow administration has announced that NGOs have been roped in and has also given an incentive of 1 liter of kerosene for those who get vaccinated.

District Immunisation Officer MK Singh said that to increase the rural vaccination apart from the static booths, the villages were also being covered. “The villages are covered individually to vaccinate those who had not been vaccinated earlier,” he said adding that the pace has shown improvement but it still requires further improvement.

Regarding the challenge which they were facing in the vaccination, he said that the challenges which they faced two to three months back did not exist now. “Now we simply have to target the persons and get them vaccinated. These are those people who do not step out unless the camp is brought right next to their door and this is what we are aiming to do. The fear amongst the people regarding the idea of getting vaccinated has now taken a back seat” he said.

A senior official from the Health Department said that the rural vaccinations have been more in the past ten days as compared to the vaccinations in the urban part and more sessions have been held in the rural areas in the state.

He said the rural-urban ratio is relevant at the district level itself because in some districts the urban areas have been saturated while the rural areas have not been covered fully while in the others which are smaller districts the urban areas may not have been covered.

Secretary Organized Academic Guild Dr. Ishwar Gilada said that pan India the vaccinations have been less in the rural areas as compared to the urban areas. “In most cases, the rural people feel that they do not require the vaccinations since their houses are placed at a greater distance and their health status is better as compared to their urban counterparts,” he said.

Dr Ishwar Gilada said that in order to improve vaccinations in the rural areas it was important to provide incentives. “Incentives in the form of farm loans could work wonders for the vaccinations in the rural areas,” he said.