V accination – a panacea to COVID-19 :

The COVID – 19 pandemic disrupted the lives of many and the poor community members are not exceptional. The livelihood and health were devasted and they were struggling to meet both ends. The first wave took many lives, but we were not known the persons. The second wave has taken our close-knit family members and neighbours caused a huge economic and social interruption in our life. The Pandemic shook very heavily and we lost 54 members or their family members in the first wave and 335 in the second wave. Free vaccination against COVID-19 commenced in our country on January 16, 2021, and the government has urged all of its citizens to be immunized, in what is expected to be the largest vaccination program in the world.

DHAN’s interventions and strategies :

The first phase of the vaccination in the January rollout involved DHAN’s health workers and frontline workers who have been working across the country in all the locations. At DHAN, a special focus was given to them because they have been with the community and role models of the vaccination drive. The mainstream facilitation with the local healthcare system (PHCs and CHCs) enabled them to get the 1st dose of vaccination done in the first phase itself. Staff who are working across the country at the Cluster and Federation level is listed out and closely followed up. This was one of the prime agenda of our regular weekly Health Meeting held on all Monday since the break out of the first wave at the beginning of 2020.

DHAN Foundation's initiatives in Vaccination Awareness & drives

The next phase of the vaccine rollout in March 2021 covered all our community members over the age of 60, members between the ages of 45 and 60 with one or more qualifying comorbidities, and any health care or frontline worker that did not receive a dose during phase I. Data of the community members were pooled out at each Federation level in the given age group and granulated the data into the cluster and to the group. Accelerated the drive-by associating with the local PHCs/CHCs to avail the jab fully by our members.

DHAN Foundation's initiatives in Vaccination Awareness & drives

From 1st April, eligibility was extended to all community members over the age of 45. Having been working in four contexts namely, rural, urban, tribal and coastal, from among these regions, very few members had voluntarily availed the vaccination facility, the major chunk has been either not aware of the advantages of getting it done or hesitant who blindly believed the myths and misconceptions of the jab. The major challenge was to address this hesitant group of members. Since, the lockdown protocol denied social gathering, through virtual platforms, our community members were connected to Medical Doctors for clarifying the doubts about vaccination. Sensitization to Community Governance on taking vaccination played a critical role and they being role models, more group members and their family members came forward for vaccination.

In the midst, the deficiency of vaccination was a challenge and it is felt in our regions, the vaccination supply to PHCs was minimized, sometimes the board saying “no vaccination” was hanged in front. But whenever there was an availability of vaccination, the token for getting vaccination was collected from the Health staff of the respective PHCs, handed over to the community members for their turn in advance. Meantime, the government of India has extended the eligibility to all communities over the age of 18 began on 1st May.

DHAN Foundation's initiatives in Vaccination Awareness & drives

Among our 1.9 million members, the target population for vaccination (18+ category) is 1.4 million and the database at the Federation level is pooled by the Regions shared with the central office for monitoring closely the vaccination progress. The progress was very slow in May (Partially – 20.7% and fully - 6.2%), June (Partially – 25.8% and fully - 7%) and July (Partially – 27.5% and fully – 8.6%) due to insufficiency of vaccine supply in PHCs/CHCs/GHs located in their locality. The gap between each dose (Covishield – available in Government Healthcare System) is also have been increased from 4 weeks to 12 weeks, makes the 2nd dose of vaccination slow.