Kerala: Noolpuzha Becomes First Tribal Panchayat To Achieve 100% Vaccination Rate

On Sunday, August 8, Kerala's Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan declared that Noolpuzha in Wayanad district had become the first tribal panchayat to achieve the fully vaccinated status.

In a Facebook post, Vijayan stated that almost 6,975 tribal people aged above 18 years were vaccinated in the special vaccination drive organised by the local body in five schools in the panchayat in association with the Tribal Development Department.

Those who were not able to attend the camps were administered the vaccine dose directly at their homes. For people living in the colonies who do not have an identity document, like Aadhaar card and voter ID, or a phone number, an exception was made on the COWIN app, he said in his post.

Mop-Up Drive

Initially, the Health Department organised a five-day mop-up vaccination drive at the ward level before declaring the local body a fully vaccinated gram panchayat. Around 21,964 people out of the total population of 22,616, including the tribal people, in the local body, were vaccinated, Vijayan concluded in the Facebook post.

On Saturday, August 7, the Chief Minister said that the Kerala government will hold a mass inoculation drive across the state starting from August 9 in view of the high number of coronavirus cases. The drive will go on till August 31, added Vijayan. The focus, he added, will be on inoculating final-year degree students, PG students, lower primary and upper primary teachers. Vijayan also said that the government will make more COVID vaccines available to the private sector

On August 6, the state's Health Minister Veena George said that over 1.5 crore people in the state have been inoculated with the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, accounting for 42.82 percent of Kerala's population.

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