Anantapur district on Saturday took up a COVID-19 vaccination drive for all eligible persons at 96 village and ward secretariats in all mandals of the district as a trial run for the four-day ‘Tika Utsav’ to be taken up from April 11 to 14 at 107 centres.
District Collector Gandham Chandrudu said that the district had received 21,000 doses on Friday night and a target of vaccinating 21,835 persons was set for the village secretariats, but the paramedical staff could vaccinate 22,695 persons by 5 p.m., registering 103.94% of the target which went up to 105.36% by 6 p.m.
“We are not wasting any dose of the vaccine,” the Collector added. District Medical and Health Officer Y. Kameswara Prasad said that the a vial of Covishield vaccine contains 10 doses of 0.5 ml, “but in some vials, there were more doses, hence we are able to vaccinate more number of people and this was the experience in other districts too.”
People came out enthusiastically to get vaccinated against the backdrop of the rising number of COVID-19 cases for the past four days. On Saturday, the number of new cases was 133, while it was 167 on Friday 137 on Thursday, and 197 on Wednesday. There has been at least one death on each of the four days. The death toll in the district stands at 609, while Kurnool’s figure is 499.
Kurnool district registered 296 new cases on Saturday pushing up the tally of active cases to 1,230. Anantapur has 821 active cases. The cumulative number of positive cases in Anantapur stands at 69,331 against 62,872 in Kurnool.
