Vaccination needs to be ramped up to fight Covid-19, says Nagaland Chief Secretary

Our Correspondent
Kohima, June 22 (EMN): Chief Secretary J Alam, who is also the chairperson of state-level war room, on Tuesday called for ramping up of vaccination in the state and to use it as an effective weapon to fight the Covid-19.

Alam stated this while interacting with journalists at the state war room along with other officials.

While stressing that there should not be any stigma on taking Covid test, the official said the war room, since its inception, was engaged in planning and arranging transportation of stranded citizens of the state from other parts of the country and providing quick relief for mitigating the sufferings of the people caused by the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the virus during the first wave.

However, he said that at present, the war room is mostly involved in interventions connected to health infrastructure particularly in view of the large number of people infected by Covid-19 getting hospitalised and requiring high level medical care.

The war room has also been regularly interacting with district task forces through virtual medium to monitor implementation of various guidelines issued by the state government and seek feedback for optimising management of the pandemic, he said.

Alam maintained that the major challenge faced by the war room was timely decisions with respect to the lockdown and asserted that, “we feel that we have taken timely decisions as far as lockdown and its related decisions are concerned”.

He added that the timely decision had helped in containing the spread of the virus.

Further, he maintained that the war room had ensured adequate availability of medical oxygen for both private and government hospitals in the state and that there were no cases of oxygen shortage with arrangements being put in place such as state-level oxygen depot and zonal depot. He added that bed availability in the state is ‘very comfortable’ and there was ‘no pressure’ with regard to that.

He acknowledged the private hospitals for coming forward in response to the government’s decision to reserve 50% of the beds for Covid-19 patients, and also thanked the healthcare and frontline workers, mass-based organisations, faith-based organisations and other NGOs.

The chief secretary observed that the co-operation of the public has improved this time, which he said was ‘very encouraging’.

He shared that the state had passed the peak of the second wave with declining trends in various parameters and particularly the positivity rate, yet the government was closely monitoring the situation.

Alam also appealed to the citizens of the state to get vaccinated when their time comes.

He shared that the state targets to vaccinate 13 lakh people (targeted people) in about next three to four months’ time as vaccination is being carried out in over 600 vaccination centres.

Informing that three villages had achieved full vaccination status, he said there were reports of ‘overwhelming response to get vaccinated’ although information percolation is slightly slower in the border areas.

He also maintained that the testing rate had to improve in order to get a clearer picture if the positivity rate is actually coming down. Meanwhile, he shared that there was a certain amount of hesitancy among the people in coming forward to take Covid test and stressed on the need take test, saying that ‘it not only pertains to the good of an individual but also the society as  a whole’.

He further urged the people not to be hesitant in revealing their contacts as contact tracing is a means to manage and identify the vulnerable people.

The Principal Secretary of Home department, Abhijit Sinha, also resounded on the urgency to ramp up vaccination in the state in order to ensure and prevent any further wave of Covid-19.

In this regard, he appealed to the people of the state to come forward and get vaccinated.

Further, he said that there was no reason to lessen the number of tests in order to contain the danger of the virus and that there should also be no testing hesitancy.

98 samples sent for genome sequencing

Meanwhile, the state nodal officer for Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), Dr. Nyanthung Kikon, informed that the state has sent 98 samples for genome sequencing to the designated laboratory in Kolkata.

The test results are still awaited.

He maintained that there is a trend of Covid-19 transmission from urban to peri-urban populations, and in this regard, systematic and structural guidelines have been laid down. He added that various functionaries at the village and grassroots levels have been directed to implement aggressive surveillance. The official also stated that the state currently has 8.3% positivity rate.