A Punjab village with ‘100% vaccination’: How a reluctant attitude turned into acceptance
Health department official Dr Sukhwinder Singh said 50 per cent of the villagers had to be requested repeatedly to get the jab. The village has a population of 1,700, out of which 947 were adults. “A total 905 have been vaccinated, 18 were pregnant females who could not be vaccinated as there are no guidelines for them while the rest 24 were medically unfit for vaccination i.e their chemotherapy was going on or a few were having some other serious ailments and hence doctors did not give consent. Hence, under these conditions, 905 needed to be vaccinated and hence the 100 per cent target had been achieved,” he added.In March, no one from the village came forward to get them vaccinated, but in April, a few of them went for their first jab. There are four villagers aged above 90 years and when they got their first jab in May, a number of youngsters felt motivated. This is how we achieved our 100 per cent target.CHO Jaswinder Kaur said, “It was not an easy task. We daily read the news on how vaccines are reaching the remotest villages of India and how health teams are convincing residents. I am happy that we also got inspired from such stories and hence became part of them.”Bhagwant Singh, ex-sarpanch of the village, said, “I am 49 years old and I have got both doses. I am hale and hearty. Earlier there was a sense of fear among the villagers regarding side effects of the vaccine, but as the cases started increasing and even rural areas got hit hard, everyone started falling in line to get the jabs