special Covid-19 immunisation drive for pregnant women

By: WE Staff | Tuesday, 9 November 2021

Officials from the district health department announced that on Tuesday, the district health department will hold a special Covid-19 immunisation drive for pregnant women at 37 session sites, where doses of the Covaxin vaccine will be provided. This will be in addition to the immunizations provided at the regular session locations and the door-to-door vaccination drive.

"We have chosen Covaxin for this drive as through this vaccine, we can ensure that pregnant women get their first and second doses of Covid-19 vaccine faster during their pregnancy term. If a woman gets infected with coronavirus during pregnancy, then there could be chances of premature delivery with the baby’s weight being less than 2.5 kilograms. In some cases, the risk of fatality also increases, due to which we want to make sure that pregnant women are vaccinated faster,” said Dr MP Singh, the district immunisation officer.

According to Singh, if a pregnant woman who has not been vaccinated or has only been partially vaccinated becomes infected with Covid-19, she will only receive the remaining doses after the baby is born. On Tuesday, 7,400 vaccine doses will be offered for this initiative, with 3,700 doses each dose. A specific vaccination drive for pregnant women is being held for the second time in the district.

The Covid-19 vaccines were provided to 14,208 people in the district on Monday, with 3,703 receiving the first dosage and 10,505 receiving the second dose.

Meanwhile, in preparation for the third wave of Covid-19 infections and to improve health infrastructure, the state health department has requested feasibility reports from 11 districts, including six in south Haryana, for the construction of 50-bed Covid-19 hospitals adjacent to the district Civil Hospital under a Central government scheme.

Rajeev Arora, the health secretary for the state, said, “Our first focus is to increase the pace of vaccination across the state with different methods, such as vaccination at fixed sites, door-to-door vaccination, special drives; but we also have to prepare in case there is a third wave of Covid-19. During the festive season, we saw that the vaccination pace was slow and people have also become more relaxed as cases have come down. But we are conducting surveys to understand the bed capacity in different districts and increase it as per the need.”

According to Arora, the chief minister will hold a review meeting with all deputy commissioners on Friday to assess the vaccination status and health infrastructure.