Ladakh Becomes First Union Territory to Complete 100% Vaccination of its Entire Eligible Population

Ladakh completes 100 percent vaccination…learn more…

Wednesday, 21st July 2021

The Union Territory of Ladakh has achieved cent per cent vaccination of all its eligible citizens along with the guest population, with the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine.

As per officials of the local administration, this includes all people above the age of 18 as well as the ‘guest’ population that includes migrant labourers, hotel workers and Nepalese citizens who are working here to make a livelihood.

With this, the UT of Ladakh becomes the first to reach this milestone, which is no small achievement given the difficult terrain here coupled with challenging weather conditions as well as isolated centres of population, several of which are extremely difficult to access.

Data from official sources state that there have been a total of 89,404 people comprising of all persons from the eligibility criteria, who have been administered with the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

A certain section of the population, amounting to about 60,936 people, have also been administered with the second dose of the vaccine. The total number of Nepalese citizens who live in the Union territory and have received their jabs is 6,821.

Speaking to the media, a senior official from the state’s administrative body said, “We gave priority to hotel workers, most of whom are from outside Ladakh, and taxi/public transport drivers as they are in the front-line of the tourism industry. Labourers and handymen come in from other states during summer, so they were also treated on priority.”

The initiative was driven from the front by a large number of functioning primary health centres along with a wide network of health workers who have years of experience in handling mass vaccination drives such as those against polio, etc. This made the drive pick pace and resulted in a 100 per cent coverage in the least amount of time.

The official also said, “Covid vaccination was nothing new for our grassroots health workers experienced in programmes such as for polio. It was just another programme to be implemented.”

On how they had managed to achieve this feat, the official said, they had been left with surplus doses of the vaccine and so instead of letting them go to waste, they had started vaccinating their 18-44 age group even before the Centre passed an official sanction.

The News Talkie Bureau

Source:

TimesofIndia Indiatimes