Assam govt. opens vaccination drive for transgenders

Guwahati: In a key initiative, Assam government opens vaccination drive for transgenders of the state. Thirty members of the transgender community got their first Covid vaccination dose in Guwahati on Friday as reported by NDTV.

The vaccination drive was conducted a shelter home for transgender in the city with the support from state's health department.

"The main source of income of most transgender people is begging. Since they come into contact with other people, they are very vulnerable to getting infected" said Swati Bidhan Baruah, founder of the All Assam Transgender Association and associate vice-chairperson of Assam government's transgender welfare board.

"As a marginalized group, they were getting left out of the vaccination process and when we requested the health department, we got a very positive response. They helped with the logistics and we were able to start the vaccination drive without any glitch," Baruah added.

There are around 20,000 members in transgender community in Assam.

The drive, which is currently restricted to Guwahati but is likely to be extended across the state depending on the availability of the vaccine.

Meanwjile , Assam's COVID-19 numbers raised to 3,24,979 on Saturday as 5,347 more people tested positive for the disease with 63 fresh fatalities pushing the total deaths to 2,123, a bulletin issued by the National Health Mission said.