The former Health Minister U.T. Khader on Monday urged the State Government to provide booster dose to frontline workers immediately to fight against the new coronavirus variant.
Addressing presspersons here, Mr. Khader, who is an MLA from Mangaluru, said that some countries have already started vaccinating their people with the third dose of the vaccine.
He said that the government should take up a largescale drive to achieve 100% vaccination in Dakshina Kannada. About 90% of the eligible population in the district have been given the first dose and about 60% of the eligible population have received both the doses.
He said that the government should be well prepared to prevent the spread of the new variant. It should not allow any such development that has the potential to create any panic among people. It should consider the new variant seriously.
The MLA said that the government has not appointed any staff for maintaining medical oxygen generator units set up at various locations in the State. If employees are not appointed, such units will not be available for use due to lack of maintenance.
The government should distribute tabs to laboratory technicians involved in swab tests as they have been using their personal mobile phones to upload the results of the swab tests.
The government should sanction more funds to Dakshina Kannada to tackle the spread of COVID-19 as it shares its borders with Kerala and the number of travellers using the facility in the district to fly to foreign countries is high.
