Pune: 3000 Waste Pickers Are Yet To Be Vaccinated
Pune, 24th July 2021: About 3000 waste pickers, who served as front-line warriors during Covid-19, are yet to be vaccinated. Many of them have not taken a single dose because of misunderstandings about the vaccine.
There are 6722 waste pickers are appointed by Pune municipal corporation (PMC) while 3500 waste pickers are from the Swach organization. Out of them, 7000 waste pickers took the first dose of the vaccine in the last 7 months while 3000 are yet to be vaccinated.
Most of them are not capable to book online vaccination; also they were kicked out from the vaccination centre as they don’t have any recommendations. As result, a large number of waste pickers who are vulnerable to Covid-19 infection are not vaccinated in the city.
While there are ongoing efforts to get vaccinated, on the one hand, there are many misconceptions among employees about the corona preventive vaccine on the other. Women in particular are staying away from vaccinations. Efforts are being made by the Municipal Corporation to get them vaccinated through counselling.
A vaccination campaign was conducted in 10 places for permanent employees, contract basis, and Swach Bharat’s waste pickers of PMC. Due to misconceptions about vaccination, some people are avoiding vaccination, said Dr Ketki Ghatge, Assistant Medical Officer, Solid Waste Department, “I helped my aunts who came to collect our household waste to book vaccines online. Garbage collectors go from house to house, they are at risk of the coronavirus infection. Therefore, serious planning should be done in this regard ” said Aniket Rathi, Parivartan Sanstha.
