Health dept goofs up in vaccination drive |
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16 March, 2002
The then Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal directed vaccination of all residents in the village to stem the immediate crisis. But then, the health department has goofed up in various places in adopting the vaccination drive in the village. The first controversy erupted on August 24, when the first camp was organised in the village for administering injections. The villagers allegedly caught two health workers stealing hepatitis-B vials and subsequently there were allegations that the some of the residents were administered distilled water injection instead of hepatitis-B. The second controversy was about variation in the use of vials for the first, second and third doses. The health department purchased 750 vials on July 20, 2001 for roughly about 10,300 residents. If health department authorities are to be believed, 750 vials were used to vaccinate 7,500 people (one vial contains 10 injections dose). So it implies that 2,800 residents were left without vaccination during this period. Then on August 17, 2001, the health department purchased another 400 vials for giving the second dose of the vaccine. Going by the authorities' logic of vaccination of one vial containing 10 injections, 4,000 people were administered hepatitis-B injections in the second phase. While for the final and third dose of the vaccine, 477 vials (meant for 4,770 people) were purchased on January 10, this year. The big question is why there was discrepancies in the use of vials for first, second and third dose?. HS Dhillon, civil surgeon, Bathinda told Times News Network," There were about 1500 surplus vials in the first phase, this excess stock was used for the second dose." This clearly shows that in the first phase only 6000 of 10,300 residents were given vaccination, thus contradicting the earlier claims of the health department authorities that 7,500 residents were vaccinated in the first phase. This also puts a question mark on the number of vials bought in the second phase. Dhillon said that a lot of people in the village had already got vaccination from private doctors hence only the remaining people were given hepatitis-B vaccination. Regarding the purchase of 477 vials for third dose, the civil surgeon asked the correspondent to come to his office for "all the details." A total of Rs 7 lakh (Rs 5 lakh from Chief Minister's Fund and Rs 2 lakh from District Red Cross) were sanctioned for the vaccination drive. It is this double-speak and credibility gap of the health department that only the well-to-do people in the village are considering the option of getting vaccinated all over again. |
Row over Hepatitis B vaccine | |
17 May 2001 The Express India By Jayashankar Menon HYDERABAD A report on the efficacy of Hepatitis B vaccines
being questioned by a section of the press, based on a warning given by a city based
voluntary organisation is getting controversial. Two city based English dailies had
carried a report on People for Economical and Effective Medicare (PEEM), warning about the
mass vaccination camps being organised in the city by various organisations against
Hepatitis B. These dailies have quoted the agency to have stated that a number of
manufacturing companies and voluntary organisations are competing with each other for
sponsoring such camps. The report further states that a PEEM spokesperson had commented
that the vaccination camps have become a game for business promotion of the manufacturing
companies and a game of numbers for the voluntary organisations.
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Hepatitis-B vaccines useless | |
26 March 2001 The ExpressIndia By Anju Agnihotri JALANDHAR JALANDHAR, MARCH 25: If you are planning to get yourself |