In Kashmir, a village basks in vaccine glory

A 3-km dust observe from Bandipora city permits automobiles passage to the whooshing Madhumati stream at Athwatoo village close to the foothills of the Himalayas. The stream is noisy and in full movement — the glaciers close by are melting quick underneath the heat of the June solar in north Kashmir.

Across the stream, there are a number of slender pony tracks on steep slopes. They result in Viewan village, about 35 km away from the Bandipora district headquarters. On foot from Athwatoo, Viewan’s final home is 11 km away. From right here, the glaciers feeding the stream abruptly turn out to be seen and appear to be shimmering mirrors.

On the horse tracks, human habitation is seen first in Tangtari after 3 km of trekking. This cluster of 12 households is in the decrease flank of Viewan village.

About 2 km away, Taziyat Jan and her daughter Naziya Jan sit in a two-storey mud-and-wood home buttressed in opposition to a slope in the midst of a dense forest. In this village — quaint, inaccessible and quiet — Taziyat has acquired her first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. “I had heard a lot of negative things about the vaccine. I was hesitant at first, but doctors counselled us and motivated us to take it. They said the vaccination certificates are going to be an important document to move around and visit offices. So, I agreed,” she says.

Viewan shot into the limelight on June 7 when it was declared India’s first vaccinated village in opposition to COVID-19. Everyone aged 18 and above has acquired their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. This glory has led to a massive push for a pro-vaccine motion in Kashmir.

A distant village

There are 710 adults — 348 of them aged above 45 years and 362 above 18 years — in and round Viewan village. Unlike the remainder of the nation, the place concern of the virus prevails and lockdowns are nonetheless in impact, the native farmers and herders in the village have resumed a regular routine with some confidence.

Nawab Gojri, Taziyat’s husband, received vaccinated in the primary week of June. He then left on an arduous journey to G.G. Gali alongside together with his cattle comprising 500 sheep. The higher reaches have untouched, inexperienced meadows the place the cattle get pleasure from grazing. Back dwelling, a ferocious canine retains watch in opposition to any assault by bears.

“I had fever and dizziness after getting vaccinated, but it subsided quickly. My husband and I feel fine now. I am worried for my daughter who has suffered from a foot disease since childhood. The treatment is expensive, and we have dropped the idea of visiting any hospital,” Taziyat says.

Taziyat, like most inhabitants of Viewan, doesn’t possess a radio, tv or cell phone. Only a few villagers have radio units and trek to factors the place they will catch a sign. With no communication entry, details about the virus trickled in via a few locals like Rafiq Rehman. A farmer in his 30s, Rafiq knew that one thing horrible was unfolding in the plains all year long and folks had been dying. “I first heard about the pandemic on the radio in March,” Rehman says. Rehman and his household determined then that they might not enterprise in the direction of the city.

Taziyat first got here to know in regards to the virus when medical doctors began streaming into the village in the final week of May. “Doctors told me that there is this disease which can kill us. They said if a person contracts it, the whole village can be wiped out. But Allah will take care of us now. We had no case of COVID-19 last year or this year,” Taziyat says.

The topography of Viewan village could have helped it to flee the fast-spreading pandemic in Bandipora district. It is a small village, distant, and landlocked. But for a similar causes, it has been a daunting job for the officers to vaccinate its inhabitants.

Shedding the Wuhan tag

Bandipora district has a inhabitants of three.92 lakh, in response to the 2011 Census. Ninety-eight folks have died of COVID-19 in the district to date. Thirty-six of them died in the second wave this yr among the many 4,338 individuals who examined optimistic till June 15.

The Deputy Commissioner of Bandipora, Dr. Owais Ahmad, believes in aggressive sampling. This is what has helped maintain the mortality charge low in this district. At least 2,44,215 samples, together with 1,33,152 this yr, have been collected for the reason that pandemic outbreak. The pattern measurement is the same as 62.2% of the whole inhabitants of the district.

“Around 90% of the 45-plus age group has been covered so far. Extensive sampling, isolation of positive patients and strict preventive measures have all helped the district control the spread of the virus,” Ahmad says. The district administration additionally labored on establishing a five-bed COVID-19 Care Centre in each panchayat.

Last yr, although, issues had been completely different for the district. Bandipora was labelled the ‘Wuhan of Kashmir’ when about 90% of the inhabitants in Gund Jahangir village, which has 1,500 folks, examined optimistic for the virus in May-June.

“I still remember when the houses in Gund Jahangir village emptied out and most of the people were shifted to quarantine centres last year. We dreaded walking through the streets and fields of Gund Jahangir,” says Dr. Masarat Iqbal Wani, Block Medical Officer, Bandipora.

Wani, backed by Ahmad, was eager to not solely eliminate this label but in addition beat the virus. The workforce started to work on a mannequin, now often known as the Viewan mannequin, to battle the pandemic. The thrust, Wani says, was to create a chain of useful resource individuals who might dispel the assorted myths in regards to the vaccine, develop a rapport with the hesitant inhabitants, and convey the significance of vaccination earlier than convincing the folks to take the jab.

“We chose Viewan among 29 other remote villages of Bandipora because even if a single COVID-19-affected person made his or her entry into these pockets, it would have been catastrophic. It would have been very difficult for the affected population to reach the nearest medical centres in the plains. Vaccinating them was like creating a buffer wall, which we did,” Wani says.

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All 267 villagers in the primary cluster of Viewan village have been vaccinated with Covishield. In the opposite 28 villages, the 45 plus inhabitants has been inoculated with one dose.

The Viewan mannequin

The officers determined to first sensitise the inhabitants. They selected locals to affect the villagers, initiated vaccination drives, and despatched a devoted workforce of medical practitioners door-to-door for inoculation. Doctors had been stationed close by to handle medical problems arising from vaccination.

Around 600 folks of the Bandipora well being division break up into 60 groups to vaccinate the inhabitants. The inhabitants aged 45 and above is nearing 100% inoculation this week. The tempo of the drive for folks aged 18 and above has slowed down attributable to a low inventory of vaccines.

It was one such workforce comprising medical doctors, one auxiliary nurse midwife, an accredited social well being activist employee, an anganwadi employee, a booth-level officer, academics, sarpanchs, panchs, block growth council members and voluntary influencers that visited Viewan on May 21 with a narrative and a technique.

Neelofar Jan, a public well being employee, vaccinates folks close to Athwatoo village north Kashmir’s Bandipora district on June 17, 2021.
 
| Photo Credit: NISSAR AHMAD

“There was hesitancy among the population regarding the vaccine. They had heard that some scientist had warned that people will die within two years of taking the vaccine,” says Wani. Many males hid in the jungles to flee getting vaccinated. “We managed to vaccinate only six people in the village, including the sarpanch, on our first trip,” he says.

Bagh Hussain, the sarpanch, says he couldn’t sleep the evening after inoculation. “We had heard that our limbs would fall off, we would die, etc. I was traumatised by these thoughts. But I realised that I need to show faith in the doctors to ensure that my community is safe from the virus,” he says.

For the subsequent 10 days after the primary go to, the workforce didn’t disturb the village. It was in the primary week of June that the workforce returned with extra proof. All the medical doctors and paramedical workers carried movies of individuals being vaccinated to earn the belief of the villagers. “Once we were back in the village, we called all the six people who had been vaccinated 10 days earlier to tell us how they feel. The live demonstration worked for the rest of the population,” Wani says.

The workforce had one other drawback: all of the elders in the village would both go to the fields or the higher reaches to graze cattle in the course of the day. “So, we decided to do door-to-door vaccination at night. The sarpanch, who was vaccinated in the first trip, accompanied us to ensure that there was no communication gap,” Wani says.

The vaccination drive would begin after sunset and proceed effectively into midnight. As there was no lodging accessible in this distant village, the feminine workers of the well being division stayed with the households, and the male workers stayed on the Viewan highschool constructing. The constructing has been empty for the reason that second wave hit India: all of the 80-odd college students enrolled there are at dwelling. The complete inhabitants was vaccinated inside three days and two nights.

Recalling the tour of the village, Jehangeer Ahmad, who’s in his 20s, says he began trekking round 8 a.m. and reached the village round 12:30 p.m. It was not straightforward to develop a reference to the villagers instantly.

“We started a free medical camp once we reached the village. People started trooping in. Most women were anaemic. We addressed their chronic diseases. At the same time, we made them understand that vaccine certificates would help people access government offices in the future besides saving their lives,” Ahmad says.

Neelofar Jan, 30, a public well being employee who vaccinated the villagers, has blisters from the arduous trek however that didn’t deter her from elevating consciousness in regards to the vaccines. She says the ladies had been very hesitant.

“We sat with them and educated them by providing a lot of details. We gave them a patient hearing. The biggest concern among women was infertility. We told them that this vaccine was like other vaccines which they had received as children to fight polio and measles. We told them that it is an immunity booster. Some people shut their doors but then, slowly, everyone started opening their doors to us,” Jan says.

The job of sensitising the inhabitants was not doable with out a native influencer. Azad Hussain Sheikh, a authorities trainer who has labored as a booth-level officer throughout elections since 2008, had developed a rapport with the inhabitants. “I have visited Viewan many times. People know me and have faith in me. I used that influence to reinforce a pro-vaccine narrative. It worked,” Sheikh says.

Only 10 pregnant girls couldn’t be vaccinated in Viewan as the federal government has not but authorized of a coverage to inoculate this phase. “When we vaccinated the entire eligible population of the village, we did not know that it would be the first village in the country to get this tag. We are very happy to achieve this feat. It was a joint effort between the top officials of the administration and grassroots representatives,” Ahmad says.

Since the village has no Internet, there was no approach the workforce might register the main points on-line. Details had been written manually on a file on the spot. “Three days later, when the staff returned, the data were fed into the application for an official record,” Wani says.

A professional-vaccine motion

The concentrate on Viewan has spurred a pro-vaccine motion in Bandipora district. Majaz Hassan Khan, a candidate from Banakoot who misplaced the block growth council polls, says he used the method deployed throughout electioneering in his block to get folks vaccinated. “I went door-to-door and pleaded with the people to get vaccinated, just like I would do to seek votes. When a medical team is backed by the political class in such initiatives, it does multiply the effect,” Khan says.

The Viewan mannequin is being replicated throughout Bandipora. Health employees have drafted elaborate plans to go and inoculate folks at evening in far-off villages like Kundara, Chandaji and Sumlar the place menfolk work in the fields in the course of the day or take cattle for grazing.

“Late evening and midnight inoculations have proved successful in far-off villages. We need to design our vaccination plan according to the requirement of the population. Each village, semi-urban and urban pocket may require a different approach,” Wani says.

About 27 km away from Wani’s hospital on the district headquarters, shikaras (small picket boats) are decked up, with blue containers of vaccines positioned safely at one finish. Wearing private safety tools, medical doctors and paramedical workers have determined to create a vaccine buffer in and round Wular lake, India’s third largest freshwater lake.

At Kolhama, an island in the lake, medical doctors took samples to examine if the inhabitants has been affected by the virus. After this examination, healthcare employees began vaccinating about 2,400 folks. In one other cluster of Zurimanz, 250 fishermen had been vaccinated after they had been out fishing in the lake in the course of the day.

Bandipora’s influencers, like kick-boxing champion Tajamul Islam, 13, are additionally out on the streets to encourage these above 18 to line up for vaccination. “We can only defeat the virus by getting a jab,” Islam says.

The Viewan mannequin has impressed the Bombay High Court too. On June 12, whereas listening to a petition, the court docket underlined the necessity to have a look at the door-to-door vaccination programme carried out efficiently by Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala, with particular reference to the nation’s first village that has received vaccinated. “How is it that individual States like Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir have introduced and are successfully doing door-to-door vaccination? What is the Centre’s comment on the Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir pattern?” the Bench requested.

Unaware of the glory, Taziyat retains trying on the sky-touching ridges of the Bandipora mountains the place her vaccinated husband has gone to graze the cattle. “I am waiting for him to return safely with healthy cattle. We need to earn money to treat our daughter. I hope everyone gets vaccinated and the pandemic ends,” she says.