Are people aware of the current vaccination drive?

The vaccination campaign that started on November 21 will last till December 20. There are provisions to receive vaccination from 4 major locations within Kathmandu and Sahid Memorial Hospital of Kalanki is one of them.

Jyoti Giri, a volunteer for Nepal Red Cross said, “In this vaccination center, we simply want people to get vaccination without any problem. Sometimes people may forget their cards, but as long as they have a photo of the card in their phone, we vaccinate them, and make them a new card with their previous card number.”

Comparing today’s situation from 2 months ago, Giri explains, “When the vaccination campaign began, the vaccines were administered for just 2-3 days which was why large crowds were seen, and there was a lot of confusion among them. People often stood in a queue from early morning and were still unable to get vaccinated.”

An average of 300 people come every day to get vaccinated in Sahid Memorial Hospital. Giri said, “This campaign will be running for a month, so there is no rush among the people. The issue of large crowd gatherings doesn’t exist anymore. There are plenty of vaccination centers, so if we continue at a steady pace like right now, everyone will be vaccinated.”

Giri believes social media has an important role to aware people about the information. “Most of the people are still unaware about the vaccination being administered,” she adds.

“We also have placed our registration desk or help desk in main chowk of Kalanki as we want people to know about the vaccination drive,” she added.