Based on the Covid vaccination target set by the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry of 23.41 lakh, the achievement till January 23, 2022 is only 57.99 per cent first dose and 44.12 per cent second dose. With the election knocking on the door, the ECI has issued strict instructions to increase the vaccination and in pursuance the Manipur government had issued an order on January 21 under which districts were assigned to senior officials to prepare and execute action plan to increase vaccination. The only confusion was that Bishnupur, Imphal East, Imphal West, Jiribam and Thoubal do not find a place which was further confounded that Kakching had done better than Thoubal in the vaccination drive. However, it was clarified personally that the four valley districts will be monitored from Imphal.
Before any action plan can be prepared, the constraints need to be understood.
The district-wise target based on the latest electoral roll must be obtained and in the assessment, the percentage achieved must be given in two columns, one against the Centre’s target and another based on the electoral roll target.
The GoI target based on table calculation is totally out of sync with reality; a mirage and unattainable. Why is the Central government sticking to this figure produced from table work is unclear.
The latest electoral roll should be the most reliable figure and as quite a few Assembly constituencies consists of areas from more than one district, the district-wise figures need to be worked out which should not be a difficult task and can be done in a couple of days. If the electoral data is reckoned, the achievement is about 68.48 per cent and 50.85 per cent respectively.
For the ECI, if all the electors are vaccinated they should have no concern, whether the MoHFW target is reached or not.
Another aspect before preparing the action plan is to determine which area or villages show maximum vax-reluctance and work on it.
From the data available in the public domain, an analysis indicates that the problems are not uniform in all districts. For example, as on January 23, the percentage of 1st and 2nd dose administered is 34.21 and 32.28 (difference 1.93) respectively in Pherzawl, which indicate that those who had got the first dose tries to get the second dose. On the other hand, in respect of Kamjong it is 34.91 and 23.41 (difference 11.50) respectively and such similar results are obtained in most of the districts. Thus, the issues prevailing are different and without understanding the local constraints, preparing plan of action will not bear fruit.
In Pherzawl, perhaps the lack of vaccination teams to visit the villages had hampered the drive.
There is a general belief that once a person was administered the first jab, he will follow it up with the second jab, but from an analysis of the data available in CoWIN website, this writer had a few months ago pointed out that many who were due for second jab were not coming out and hence counselling is required for them also.
For the officers to prepare the action plan; what steps had been taken and why it has not succeeded must be analysed or else the same mistake could be repeated.
In the hill areas, there are three or four power blocks. In Kuki villages, the chief is supreme and without his say not much can progress. In others, the village authority is another centre of power and they just cannot be neglected. So is the case with the church and in those bigger villages where there are more than a denomination all need to be carried along; political leaders; the students or youth bodies are another strong lobby and most important but never spoken in the open is the UG (militants) influence. All these groups must be taken along or else due to power play among them, little can be achieved.
In the valley, among the Meiteis, the religious leaders say is limited. Now due to the election round the corner, political leaders cannot be roped in and it is felt that if the MLAs in the hills had contributed as the MLAs of the valley did, the achievement should have been much more. There is no denying the fact that many valley MLAs worked tirelessly towards higher vaccination, including distribution of masks.
With experience of working in the district it can be said that carrying along all stakeholders is easy to say but difficult on the ground due to one-man-up-ship among the stakeholders and one has to maintain a delicate balance. With the senior officers all having field experience, they will be prepared and have the skill to maintain the delicate balance that is required.
Why certain group is not supporting the vaccination drive needs to be understood. The vaccination reluctance (it can no longer be termed as vaccination hesitancy) seems to be high in the hills, especially among some religious denominations. Their concern need to be dispelled by logical factual data and information.
UAE has the highest vaccination among any countries and to say that Muslim due to religious belief has vax-reluctance is not true and the case of Jiribam also supports this. There are population due to co-morbidities cannot be vaccinated and thus 100 per cent achievement is not possible. In the hills, the first targets should be villages with large population with less vaccination and it is believed that despite claims that there is sufficient manpower, there is shortage of manpower to do IEC work as well as vaccination drive. In fact, due to COVID-19 vaccination drive, other vaccination programmes had been hit largely and even for NCD programmes.
The state government ought to have projected the need of additional manpower as COVID-19 is a major problem over-riding other normal programmes.
Despite an effort to rope in NGOs and CSOs, the effort never fructified and perhaps only a few are involved. The contribution of the 120 vaccination vehicles which was flagged of with much fanfare seems to have achieved little. A review of the achievement of these is due for better performance and utilisation. The effort need to be result oriented and not an attempt to bye-pass responsibility. ECI directs the state government and the government had issued the orders and the identified officers will also issue a series of guidelines and instructions which may be non implementable at ground zero. This should not be the case.
With community transmission of Omicron and the utter lack of following the protocols laid down, the chances of further spread cannot be ruled out. The only redeeming feature of this variant is that despite higher transmissibility the severity is lower. But it is not like the common cold as it can still kill.
Vaccination can protect to such an extent that hospitalisation and mortality is lowered. And there is the question of long Covid, where those who had negative reports continues with certain symptoms like loss of smell, difficulty in breathing, tiredness and even mental fog for months and may even for years in quite a few. That is the reason, why one should ensure to avoid infection.
In quite a few European countries, the new sub-lineage of Omicron called BA.2 (the original Omicron is assigned BA.1) is contributing to about 20 per cent of all new infections. In India also, it had started circulating and even in Manipur it has been confirmed from a political person who literally stay put in the state due to the election.
The behaviour of BA-2 is still not clearly known and is well under study but it has mutations common to both delta and omicron. Of the samples sent to IBSD, about five per cent could not be processed due to quality deterioration during storage and not fulfilling the CT score criteria.
Unverified propaganda need to be avoided. A spokesperson of the main ruling party praised India’s effort claiming that India is on top in providing COVID vaccines. On January 16, it was claimed that 92 per cent of the target in India has received the first dose while 70 per cent had received the second dose. He compared with countries like Russia, Germany, Brazil, and USA which has a much smaller population. But China is never mentioned and it is one country which can be compared to India in terms of population.
The spokesperson claimed that India has launched eight vaccines, of which only two were developed in India namely Covaxin and ZyCoV-D, the rest Covishield, Sputnik-V, Corovax, Corbevax, J&J single dose vaccine, and mRNA 1273 are manufactured under licence by Indian companies. As per the COVID vaccine tracker of NYtimes, on January 25, India had administered the first dose to 68 per cent and second dose to 50 per cent while China had administered to 91 per cent and 88 per cent respectively. China had provided 2,968 million doses while India 1,622 million. Lies can never replace truth and it is lies which result in vaccination reluctance among the public.
(The views expressed are personal)
