Health teams brave snowfall conditions to vaccinate teenagers

Rajouri: The teams of the Health Department here in Rajouri’s snow-bound areas are braving tough snowfall conditions to vaccinate persons between the age group of 15 to 18 years for coronavirus with 16,733 such persons having been vaccinated so far.

The vaccination drive for persons between the age group of 15 to 18 years was started last week and is going on at a large scale with teams of the Health Department conducting visits in education institutions under phase one and administering vaccines to the beneficiaries.

Officials of the Health and Family Welfare Department said that the main challenge they were facing was to carry the vaccination drive in snow-bound areas.

“There are some areas in the upper reaches where still one to two feet of snow is accumulated. This is the main challenge at this time. However, the vaccination teams are braving the hostile weather conditions to conduct visits in specified education institutions and administer the vaccine to the eligible persons,” officials said.

Block Medical Officer (BMO) Kandi, Dr Iqbal Malik told Greater Kashmir that more than 70 percent area of the Kandi medical block was under the snow which is a hurdle for the vaccination teams but these teams were braving these tough conditions.

“We are achieving our targets daily despite hostile weather conditions,” he said.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Rajouri, Dr Anees Altaf Nabi, who is also the Officiating Chief Medical Officer, said that the vaccination drive for persons in the age group of 15 to 18 years category was going on in a full swing.

“We have so far vaccinated 16,733 persons with 2062 vaccinated on Tuesday,” he said.

Dr Nabi said that the department had also started the process to administer booster doses to the health workers and frontline workers with 482 health workers having been given coronavirus booster doses besides the 167 frontline workers and six persons above 60 years of age with co-morbidity.