Hyderabad: Vaccine campaigns damp squib
Lukewarm response to MR drive by Old City schools.
Hyderabad: After the ‘awareness camps’ about measles and rubella (MR) vaccination failed to yield satisfactory results, the staff at the government schools in the Old City are now ‘forcing’ students to get the vaccine administered.
This aggressive stance is yielding results with around 150 students of Government Girls High School Falaknuma relenting and taking the vaccination. “We are under pressure. In the first phase, only 80 of the total 330 students had agreed. On Wednesday, 150 of the girls agreed to be vaccinated on their own. They agreed after we convinced them,” said a teacher of the school on condition of anonymity.
A teacher of a school in Farooqnagar said that the department had asked them to get the students vaccinated without the approval of their parents.
“We planned to do it but backed off fearing a backlash from the parents. Our school is in a slum area and despite holding three meetings in the area the parents have not come forward. We don’t want to take any chances,” said the teacher. So far, only 20 per cent of the students of the school were administered the vaccine. “People are still reluctant. They believe in superstitions and rumours and have not come forward for the vaccination,” said a teacher.
The situation is no different in the private schools in Old City. According to the health department statistics, only 30 per cent of the children in Old City areas were administered MR vaccine so far.
No proper arrangements made for MR shots, allege parents
Parents of children studying in a private school in the city allege that no proper arrangements were made for the measles and rubella vaccination programme conducted by the school on Wednesday.
The vaccination program was scheduled to be held at 10 am on Wednesday, but parents allege they were made to wait for many hours. “It has been six months now that schools are conducting MR vaccination programmes in coordination with the state government but we were shocked to see that there were no proper arrangements when we reached our child’s school for the vaccination programme,”a parent said. The school authorities denied the allegations.