North-east Delhi: District administration ropes in mosques, Imams to address Covid vaccine hesitancy

New Delhi [India], November 16 (ANI): To further intensify the pace of COVID-19 inoculation and address vaccine hesitancy in North East Delhi, the district administration has started taking the help of mosques.
The North East Delhi district administration on Tuesday held a meeting with the Sadr and Imam of many mosques of the district at Madina Masjid in Jafrabad area.
The meeting was led by Additional District Magistrate (ADM) North East Shubhankar Ghosh and Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Seelampur Sharat Kumar.
Speaking to ANI, SDM Seelampur Sharat Kumar informed that about 12 lakh people in the North East district are eligible to take the COVID-19 vaccine but there are still about 2,60,000 of them who have still not taken even a single dose of vaccine.
Giving examples of two areas, Kumar said that the total population in the Chauhan Banger area is about 30,000.
"But out of those, there are about 19,000 people who have not taken the vaccines yet. Along with that, the total population in the Jafrabad area is 13000, but out of that 7000 people are such who have not taken a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Keeping this in mind, they organized this meeting in Madina Masjid of Jafrabad area," he said.
To make people aware of the COVID-19 vaccines and to help the district administration, Kumar said that a medical team was also present in this meeting wherein ways to remove vaccine hesitation among people were discussed.
"People need to be made aware about the need to get the vaccine in this COVID-19 pandemic. In the meeting, the Imams of the mosques assured the district administration that they would appeal to the people to get the vaccine before holding prayers on the next visit to the mosque. Awareness would be spread through loudspeakers as well," he said.
SDM Seelampur Sharat Kumar informed that mobile vans will now be present outside Madina Masjid of Jafrabad to administer vaccines to the people.
"Along with this, many mobile vans will go out to different mosques of the district and apply the vaccines to the people."
He said that in the north-east region of the national capital, about 12 lakh people are eligible for taking vaccines, out of which 9.5 lakh people have got the first and about 4.5 lakh people have received both doses. (ANI)