A special COVID-19 vaccination camp was organised on Tuesday by Agra's health department for squatters living in a graveyard in the city, adding to the innumerable stories of health workers and authorities overcoming various challenges to ensure people get the jabs to fight the pandemic.
Naresh Paras, a child rights activist in Agra, said he surveyed the 'Panchkuiyan' graveyard area, where mostly beggars, hawkers and ragpickers were living in shanties, and found that most of them were not vaccinated because of lack of knowledge.
"But they often visit public places and come in contact with others. I informed the health officials and requested them to organise a vaccination camp for them," he said.
On Tuesday, 62 people living in the slum in the graveyard were given the first dose of vaccine and 28 people were administered the second dose, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Agra, RC Mathur said.
"We are carrying out a special vaccination drive for those who are not able to reach health camps. We have been focusing mainly on the people living in slums. We motivate these people and educate them about the advantage of being vaccinated. And after that, we visit the locality and we organise vaccination programme," he said.
Mr Mathur said many people did not get vaccinated as they did not have identity cards.
"'We have also organised a vaccination programme for the slum people living near to the Agra Fort. We are taking the help of the activists, local NGOs and others to reach out to those who are not vaccinated," he said.
Mohd Arif, who got vaccinated at the camp said, ''Earlier I was scared, but when the officials of the health department told me that there would be no harmful effect of the vaccine on me, I agreed to get vaccinated."
According to the health department, on Tuesday, four positive cases were detected in Agra, while 28,217 people were vaccinated in the district at 609 centres.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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