Gurugram: Soon, Covid-19 vaccination camps in community centres?

Gurugram: After offices, Covid-19 vaccination camps may soon be set up at community centres. The health department and private hospital began setting up such camps on office premises in the city from April 1.

“We are in talks with local councillors in Gurugram so that we can start vaccination camps at community centres in wards. This would help us maximise the coverage of vaccination. There would be a team of doctors to carry out the drive at community centres,” said Dr MP Singh, district immunisation officer.

Meanwhile, the second day of the Phase 4 of the Covid-19 vaccination drive in the city saw a dip of around 10% in turnout compared to the previous day — a total of 10,010 people aged above 45 years were inoculated on Friday, while over 11,000 had got jabs the day before. As many as 183 session sites, including 148 in government setups and 35 in private hospitals, were set up across the city on Friday. Gurugram has a target of 3.5 lakh vaccinations for the fourth phase and the number includes the target for the third phase as well.

Of 10,010 people who were vaccinated on Friday, 5,969 were given the vaccine at government health facilities, while 4,041 got jabs at private session sites. “All the private and government session sites will carry out vaccination drives on all days of the week. This has resolved the problem of the people who were demanding that inoculation should also be conducted over the weekend,” Dr Singh said.

He added that turnout for vaccination at private hospitals is also rising. Government session sites have generally reported higher turnout compared to private sites.

Doctors at private hospitals also agreed that more people are coming for jabs at private facilities now, compared to the earlier phases. “Turnout has certainly improved. A reason for the improvement in turnout is that there is a surge in Covid cases and people have started understanding that the vaccine is the only protection offered so far against the infection. The response is certainly better than the third phase for now. I am sure that the turnout will continue to improve in the coming days,” said Dr Arunesh Kumar, head of department, Paras Chest Institute, Paras Hospital.

“We are expecting more people to get vaccinated, now that people aged above 45 years don’t need a certificate of comorbidity and anyone in this age group can get the jab,” said Dr Piyush Goel, senior consultant (pulmonary and critical care), Columbia Asia Hospital, Palam Vihar.