Lucknow: Amid rising cases of COVID-19 in Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath government is sending a proposal to the Union Health Ministry for allowing vaccination of people in the 18-45 age group and to withdraw the mandatory comorbidity provision for 45-60 age group.
After a thorough discussion, the state Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh has directed his department to prepare a proposal in this regard to seek the Centre’s nod.
This comes as the state is staring at the second wave of COVID-19 outbreak.
Under the proposal, permission will be sought from the Centre to open COVID-19 inoculation between the age-group of 18-45, particularly to those who are having hypertension, diabetes and cardiac problems.
The proposal will also seek permission for doing away with the comorbidity rider for taking COVID-19 jabs for the people between the age-group of 45-60 years. Basically, the proposal of the Yogi Adityanath government to the Centre seeks to open vaccination for all above 18 years of age.
State Health department officials claim that the main reason behind this is to take the state towards developing ‘herd immunity’ in next three to four months. To achieve this, India's most populated state needs to inoculate about 30 percent of its population.
So far only 34 lakhs people between the age group of 45 to 60 plus have taken Covid-19 jabs. To achieve the target for developing herd immunity, about 7 crore people need to be vaccinated to meet the challenge thrown by the sudden surge in coronavirus cases in the state.
The proposal of allowing vaccination to all above 18 is aimed at checking the spread of the deadly viral disease as they are the one who stay out of the house more often and are prone to get infected and carry forward their infection to others.
The State Chief Secretary R.K. Tewari has already issued directives to initiate action against those not wearing masks in public places and maintain mandatory social distancing.
He has also directed to screen air travellers at the airport and passengers at Railway platforms and bus stations coming from outside, particularly from eight states where maximum cases are reported.
The state government has also decided to raise the RTPCR test by 50 percent and step up drive for focus and contact testing in addition to reaching its target of 10 million vaccinations by March end.
