Wearing pink saris and armed with notebooks filled with rural vaccination records, a group of women gathered for a review meeting on Tuesday at the recently inaugurated Rui Dharud Public Health Centre on the outskirts of Rui village in #Maharashtra’s Beed.

The women are accredited social health activists, or #ASHAs, the footsoldiers of the country’s rural health mission and now its pandemic response. Since the vaccination programme began in January, they have been visiting every house in their assigned villages to spread the word. Over 70,000 ASHAs in Maharashtra are also tasked with registering rural communities for #vaccination.

“People have read WhatsApp forwards about someone dying after getting vaccinated,” said Ashwini Mhaske, an ASHA supervisor from Dhraud Rural block, which has over 2,500 people in the age group above 45. “This makes them think they will die too.” So far, she said, her team of ASHAs has managed to convince 550 people to get vaccinated.

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