MP: 30 students received vaccination using one syringe; “How am I to Blame?” Says the vaccinator
After the parents of the children raise a fuss, the vaccinator accuses the health department officials of giving the wrong instructions and disappears. The health department has filed an FIR against him.
At least 30 school children received doses of the Covid-19 vaccine with just one syringe at a reputable school in Sagar city, a few kilometers from the state capital Bhopal, in flagrant violation of the established “one needle, one syringe, only one-time” protocol, advisories and pledges by the central government, national and international agencies.
The shocking incident was caused by male vaccine Jitendra Rai at the Jain Public Higher Secondary School.
One of the parents who were accompanying their kids for the vaccinations saw the irregularity right away and blew the whistle. His name is Dinesh Namdev.
“My daughter, a student in Class 9, had a vaccination on Wednesday. I enquired from the man vaccinating the kids, as to how many syringes were being used by him to vaccinate the children. His response was startling; he said that with just one syringe, at least 40 kids had received vaccinations. I informed the school administration about the situation right away,” he stated.
“Who will be held accountable if any health issues in our children arise from this egregious single-syringe usage? If something bad occurs to our kids, who will be responsible—the school or the health department?” he questioned.
The Sagar district collector Kshitij Singhal hurried the district’s chief medical and health officer [CMHO] Dr. DK Goswami to the troubled school as word of the terrible carelessness spread like wildfire.
Before the CMHO arrived, the scribes interrogated Jitendra on tape, and he admitted administering shots to at least 30 kids with a single syringe. “Since I only had one syringe and was instructed to vaccinate all children with it by the department staff, I vaccinated 30 children with it.
I k new that one syringe shouldn’t be used, but since I was told to do so, I did,” he said. Additionally, he was unable to recall which member of the health department had dropped him off at the school for the Covid vaccination drive.
Jitendra was discovered absent from the school grounds and his phone was off during the CMHO’s initial on-the-spot inspection and investigation. An official statement from the Sagar district administration read, “While a departmental investigation against the district vaccination officer Dr. Rakesh Roshan has been recommended to the Sagar divisional commissioner. The health department has registered an FIR against Jitendra at the Gopalganj police station.”
Abbas Hafeez, the state spokesperson for the opposition Congress, called for the resignation of state health minister Dr. Prabhuram Chowdhary as a result of his inexcusable incompetence in administering vaccinations to schoolchildren. “What happened at the Sagar school reveals that the state’s health system is disobeying all safety regulations and best practises in order to meet goals for the Covid vaccination mega-campaign and get national recognition. The state health apparatus is using our children as test subjects in order to maintain its lead in the national Covid vaccination statistics. One parent at the school today noticed this glaring inconsistency, but this has raised concerns about whether similar carelessness has already affected our generation’s successors in the state, according to Hafeez.
