A man seen on a tree to escape vaccination in Ballia in a video shared by health officials.
A team of health officials in Uttar Pradesh's Ballia, out on a Covid vaccination awareness drive, faced cases of extreme hesitancy in a remote village, underscoring the need for faster vaccinations ahead of elections in India's most populous state.
Ballia is among UP's worst-performing districts when it comes to overall vaccinations in the state. The videos were shot on Tuesday by health officials. One of them shows a man climbing a tree to escape vaccination, another video shows a man wrestling a health official to the ground.
"Please come down," a group of people urge a man on a tree.
"I won't come down. I don't want to get jabbed. I am scared," the man replies.
Finally, he relents and co-operates with the health officials.
In another video, a man is seen wrestling with health authorities as he tries to escape from getting the Covid vaccine.
"I will come for vaccination later, not now," he says as he runs away.
"Please take the shot now, why wait,' a health official is heard saying in the background.
Explaining the incident, a health official, who oversaw the vaccination drive, said, "The videos were shot by health officials during a vaccination drive. The man who climbed on the tree was initially hesitant. We convince them and got him jabbed. In the other case, the boatman was scared that we will forcefully take him and hence got aggressive".
The two videos from Uttar Pradesh's Ballia showcase the challenges health officials face as they try to get more people inoculated against the tightly infectious coronavirus.
Uttar Pradesh has administered 24 crore doses under the countrywide vaccination drive that was rolled out on January 16 last year with healthcare workers (HCWs) getting inoculated in the first phase. The vaccination of frontline workers (FLWs) started from February 2, 2021.
The first dose of anti-coronavirus vaccines have been administered to over 95 per cent of the eligible population in the state while the second dose administered to around 62 per cent, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said recently.
In the 15-17 years age group, 62.83 lakh vaccine doses have been provided out of the target 1.40 crore doses, he said.