Vaccination Team Rescued After Being Detained By Villagers in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj

Baripada: COVID-19 cases are surging on the back of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, but vaccine hesitancy refuses to go.

A vaccination team was detained for several hours on Monday evening by local villagers at Talsari, under Badakhaman panchayat in Udala block of Mayurbhanj district. So much so that police personnel and administrative officials had to rush to the spot to rescue the team.

It took Udala Block Development Officer (BDO), local Tehsildar and police officials almost six hours to convince villagers and let go the vaccination team — which included an Anganwadi worker and an ASHA worker.

“I reached the village at around 2 pm and was detained by the villagers since. I tried to persuade them to get the jab, but they did not listen to us. They kept saying that there is nothing called coronavirus,” said Anganwadi worker Soumya Murmu.

Some villagers of Talsari were reportedly given the COVID vaccine a day earlier. But when the Anganwadi and ASHA workers visited the village to inoculate the remaining villagers, some of them said they were fit and healthy, and didn’t need vaccination, while others stated they will get their shot after the harvest season of paddy.

As the health workers tried to convince them, the villagers got annoyed and detained them.

“The vaccination team forcefully vaccinated some people during a campaign. The harvest season has started and the villagers are engaged in harvesting paddy crops. If we fall ill after getting vaccinated, how will we carry out harvesting work,” local resident Surendra Murmu alleged.

BDO Debjani Bhuyan felt there is miscommunication and lack of awareness about the vaccine among villagers.

“We will have a discussion with them soon and conduct an awareness drive on it,” she said.

Despite the Odisha government going all out to push vaccination, over 30 lakh people are yet to receive a single dose of the vaccine.