Immunization Drive For Poverty-stricken Strata
The Union Health Ministry has written to respective States and Union territories to arrange vaccination drive for homeless, migrant people who cannot access vaccination process due to unavailability of enough resources with them such as self-registration process and so on.
This will ensure the fair and equitable distribution of vaccinations to the most unguarded people in our society.
The States and other governments can seek assistance from various Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), civil societies and other persons who would like to come forward for this vaccination drive.
Therefore, the states are required to work together with their concerned Departments of Social Justice and Empowerment, Health Department in respective States/Union Territories to assist various beggars, migrants and poor workers of our society.
Supreme Court judgement
The judiciary of the Supreme Court had already said that it will not be going to take an aristocratic view and rehabilitate the beggars on the streets. It is a social situation that we all need to handle with careful steps.
A bench of Justices MR Shah and DY Chandrashekar emphasized that many people are pushed to be on the streets to beg which includes children as well. This is a great social and economic problem and will not be going to resolve with any prayer or something like that.
Decision of drive
The decision to arrange the vaccination drive is taken when a bench of the supreme court was hearing an appeal to prevent beggars, homeless people, or migrants from begging at various traffic polls, markets, and other public places. This will prevent the spread of hazardous infection of COVID-19 in all the States and the Union Territories of India.
The Coronavirus vaccination has reached a forty-six crore landmark which is a milestone in itself. According to Health Department, the first dose of vaccination which is Cavaxin had reached 20,96,446 doses, while the second dose in the age group of 18-44 years had reached up to 3,41,500 doses.
Besides this, more than 15 crore persons falling in the age group of 18-44 years have been vaccinated for their first dose across 37 States and Union Territories. The second dose had reached 80,31,011 persons as phase 3 of this immunization drive.
Health ministry verdict
According to the Health Ministry of India, there is an urgent need to focus on the immunization process of various unprivileged people of the society so that there will be a fair distribution of the government’s initiative of vaccination.
The Union Health Secretary addressed, “More than forty-five crore doses of these vaccines have been registered in the department. This is the people-centric vaccination drive and provisions had been made to make it accessible to all eligible priority groups irrespective of their social and economic strata in society.”
He also added that the ministry has priorly guided all the states and the union territorial governments via a letter on May 6, to provide Coronavirus vaccination to all those people which are nomads, beggars, migrant workers, etc, while sharing the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for vaccination of people who do not have official identity card of India.
