Tribal men climb trees to avoid COVID-19 jabs

Only 7 persons could be vaccinated

A group of men from a tribal settlement near Coimbatore climbed trees to avoid a team of health workers, who had approached them to administer COVID-19 vaccines on Friday. A few women, too, left the hamlet on the pretext of collecting water from a stream. While the Health Department said the men climbed the trees due to vaccine hesitancy, tribal welfare activists felt the incident highlighted the poor reach of the healthcare system to the Adivasi community and the failure to create awareness among them.