India News | VP Naidu Calls Upon People, Govt to Reach out to People to Remove Vaccine Hesitancy

New Delhi, Jan 5 (PTI) Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday called upon public-minded individuals, social advocacy groups, medical professionals and the government to reach out to people to remove vaccine hesitancy that may be stopping India in its collective fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

He also urged parents to get their children in the age group of 15 to 18 years vaccinated at the earliest.

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In a video message for an international health summit, Naidu called for a sense of urgency in dealing with the new surge in Covid cases and to apply the lessons of the past waves of the pandemic.

"We must consider it our 'dharma' and 'kartavya' (duty) to follow the Covid protocol at all times -– wearing a mask, maintaining physical distancing and getting vaccinated, and secure ourselves and our community," he said.

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According to a statement issued by the Vice President Secretariat, Naidu noted that Indian firms have collaborated with US-based organisations to produce the recently approved vaccines — Corbevax and Covovax.

"This experience clearly shows India-US collaboration in healthcare can reap great benefits not only for our countries but for the entire world".

In his message, the vice-president expressed concern that while urban areas have technology in tertiary care that attract international patients, it is worrisome that rural areas are lagging with limited access to even primary care.

To bridge this, along with other measures, Naidu suggested exploring the use of telehealth and other technological solutions in reaching out better to rural and remote areas.

This, he felt, will expand the utilisation of the country's limited manpower and health infrastructure to reach the last mile.

In this regard, Naidu noted a welcome trend of many health-tech start-ups in India and suggested scaling up their healthcare services for rural areas so that the geographical barriers may be overcome and out-of-pocket expenditures are rationalised.

He observed that Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, with a digitised record of the patient's medical history, will boost these efforts.

Naidu lauded Telangana for excelling in the recently released NITI Aayog's fourth edition of the State Health Index. He expressed happiness that Telangana is also in the top three states in the year-on-year incremental performance in health outcomes.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)