Jharkhand health department says, no plans to vaccinate VIPs

The Jharkhand state health department has informed that there are no plans yet to inoculate VIPs in Jharkhand.

This comes after speculations making rounds on the media over Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be vaccinated for COVID along with chief ministers of various states in the second phase of the mass inoculation drive.

“We have not received any such instructions or guidelines from the Centre as of now,” health secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni told TOI, adding that the department will adhere to the guidelines and SOPs on targeted beneficiaries in the second phase forwarded by the Centre.

As per guidelines, frontline workers such as police, homeguard and paramilitary personnel will be administered the vaccine in the second phase.

A senior official in the health department said the guidelines on vaccine use are so stringent that health minister Banna Gupta had to be dissuaded from taking the jab in the first phase, which began on January 16.

Gupta had announced he would take the vaccine with an aim to instill confidence about its safety among 1.31 lakh health workers.

Notably, more than 20 MLAs and six ministers in the state cabinet contracted the deadly Covid-19 virus between July and November last year.

Among them, state minority affairs minister Haji Hussain Ansari died after recuperating from the virus while education minister Hagarnath Mahto underwent a life-saving lung transplant surgery in Chennai.

The Center`s guidelines mandated that people above 50 years of age and people below 50 with comorbidities will be administered the vaccine.

Barring state agriculture minister Badal Patralekh, water resources minister Mithilesh Kumar Thakur, health minister Banna Gupta, and chief minister Hemant Soren, all ministers in the cabinet are above 50 years of age.