Kolkata: With an attempt to ensure that Covid infection remains under control during Puja, the state government has directed all the districts to complete booster vaccinations within September.
Health secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam during a virtual meeting from Nabanna on Saturday asked various district magistrates and chief medical officer of health in the districts to chalk out plans and complete booster doses by the end of September.
Health officials believe that Puja pandals this year will see more footfall after two years. As there is a possibility of a surge of Puja hoppers after Covid pandemic disrupted the merrymaking for the past two years, it is necessary to cover the maximum number of people with booster doses. The district officials have been asked to spread awareness to ensure that people take booster doses. Incidentally, Covid daily infection on an average dropped below 500 in the past few days.
Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi during a meeting earlier also laid stress on the booster vaccinations which can reduce the possibility of a fresh surge in the infection. According to health department data, around 1.22 crore people received booster doses in the state so far while over 6.45 crore people have received double doses. Around 7.29 crore received first doses of Covid vaccine.
During Saturday's virtual meeting, the Health secretary once again took stock of the dengue situation in various districts. He has urged the districts to strengthen surveillance. The state government on Friday issued an alert to various districts asking to strictly undertake conservancy drives on a daily basis particularly in those areas where cases have been reported in the past 2-3 weeks.
According to sources the most affected districts are Kolkata, North 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, Jalpaiguri. More than 540 dengue cases were reported in the state in the past 7 days. The number of dengue cases this year crossed the figure registered during this period last year. More than around 4200 people have been affected with dengue across the state so far. More than 4 per cent of those who had undertaken dengue tests in the past one week eventually tested positive for dengue. Kolkata has so far registered more than 350 dengue cases so far since January this year.