Story behind vaccine turnaround in Bastar

As India started inoculating senior citizens against Covid-19 on March 1, Bastar district collector Rajat Bansal faced the daunting task of fighting misinformation spread by social media forwards and persuading tribal groups to take the shot. Bansal vividly remembers how challenging the first one month was. “There was a lot of resistance from the tribal community. There was misinformation about vaccine:s People believed they would die if they took the vaccine,” he said. Bastar district had one of the lowest vaccine uptakes in March. Six months later, the turnaround in tribal-dominated Bastar is remarkable. The district administration has managed to inoculate over 75.5% of 45+ and 36.4% of 18-44 year age group with at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccines. “The people here follow a daily routine. They eat right before starting from home and then return at night to eat the next meal. Some people take the vaccine in the middle of the day and then go right back to their fields for hard labour in the sun without rest or respite. Some people developed fever and this triggered hesitancy. People thought that they did not have Covid-19 but with the vaccine they were developing fever and condition worsening,” Bansal said.This hesitancy and poor vaccine uptake pushed the district administration to rope in youth volunteers who have been organised in a group called Yuvoday. Yuvoday has district and block coordinators and a network of youth volunteers in the villages. “Yuvoday volunteers were given basic training in Jagdalpur on how to dispel fear and hesitancy against vaccination. They were taught how to persuade people, tell them it was natural to develop fever and the benefit of Covid-19 vaccination,” Bansal said. Volunteers drove those willing to be inoculated on their bikes to the vaccine centres and involved influencers like schoolteachers, anganwadi workers and other healthcare workers to persuade people. Yuvoday volunteers recalled how they brought inoculated frontline workers to speak to villagers. “We took vaccinated frontline workers to the villagers to demonstrate that they had taken the vaccine and were fine,” a Yuvoday volunteer told ET.What added to the challenges were administrative protocols to reduce vaccine wastage. As Chhattisgarh reported high wastage initially, health officers were told not to open a vial if there were less than 10 in the queue. If there were 4 people in a village, volunteers faced the tough task of looking for six more from neighbouring villages to ensure all were vaccinated without wastage.There were specific tribes that showed vaccine hesitancy. They included Mariya, Muriya, Gond and Halbi. “We faced hesitancy especially among Mariya tribe in Bastanar block,” Bansal said, adding there were still about 8-10% of the eligible population unwilling to be inoculated. However, the district has come a long way from the March figures. Now, it gets about 10,000 vaccine doses, which as per the district collector, are exhausted within 2-3 days. “The demand is exceeding the supply now,” he said.

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