Anjela Tirki was vaccinated for Covid-19 at the Community Health Centre of her block in Jharkhand. An accredited social health activist or ASHA, part of the network of community health workers under the National Health Mission, she did not get any document stating that she had been received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
“The hospital people were doing a lot of documentation but I didn’t get any paper,” said Tirki, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. Neither was she aware that she had to take a second dose. She said: “I didn’t know that I would get another vaccine dose. I wasn’t told anything of that sort.”
India commenced the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines on January 16 amidst concerns about the lack of transparency around protocols, the approval of vaccines and adverse events in clinical trials. As of February 7, about 57 lakh healthcare and frontline workers have received the first dose of the vaccine across the country. The…