Bhubaneswar: Odisha Government has directed District Collectors and Commissioners of Municipal Corporations to vaccinate one lakh elderly persons per day against deadly COVID-19.
Additional Chief Secretary of Health and Family Welfare Department, Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra in a letter to the District Collectors, Municipal Corporation Commissioners and CDM& PHOs directed them to accelerate the pace of vaccination of elderly persons in all districts and urban areas.
The officials were asked to take steps to enhance the pace of vaccination so that one lakh elderly persons can be vaccinated per day, it mentioned.
The Additional Chief Secretary also directed the officials to activate private hospitals as Covid Vaccination Centres.
Worth mentioning, the second phase of vaccination against Covid-19 was launched across the country on March 1, 2021 for the persons above 60 years and those in between 45 and 59 years with co-morbidities.
During the first phase of vaccination, healthcare workers and frontline workers were vaccinated.
The State’s COVID-19 tally mounted to 3,37,929 on Wednesday as 69 more people tested positive for the infection, a health department official said.
Of the new cases, 41 were reported from quarantine centres and 28 detected during contact tracing.
Sundargarh district recorded the highest number of fresh cases at 14, followed by Cuttack (11) and Mayurbhanj (8).
The death toll remained unchanged at 1,917 as no new fatality has been reported in the last eight days, he said.
Fifty-three other COVID-19 patients have died due to comorbidities in the state, the official said.
Odisha now has 709 active cases and 3,35,250 people have so far recovered from the disease.
The state has conducted over 85.35 lakh sample tests for COVID-19, including 23,425 on Tuesday, and the positivity rate stands at 3.96 per cent, he added.