KOLKATA: Non-availability of vaccines is forcing the
KMC
health department to keep its 102
Covishield clinics
and 50
Covishield mega centres shut indefinitely.
A zero stock at the Ballygunge depot had compelled the civic brass to shut its 102 Covishield clinics and 50 mega centres on Friday. Vaccination in Kolkata dropped to around 24,000 on Friday, which is less than half of its average vaccination numbers over the last week.
Struggling to cope with an acute dearth of Covishield vaccines, the KMC on Friday sent a special requisition to the
state health department
to send vaccines vials at the earliest so that the civic body could reopen its Covishield clinics and mega centres.
According to state health department, a consignment of 3.5 lakh doses of Covishield is expected to arrive on Saturday.
Another 6 lakh doses of Covaxin is also expected to reach Bengal on Saturday.
As per the state data, there were 15 lakh doses on Friday, out of which 8 lakh were Covaxin and the rest Covishield. Bengal received 1.7 lakh Covaxin on August 1 and 3.7 lakh Covishield on August 3.
“We are hoping to receive fresh stock by Sunday afternoon. If we manage to receive a fresh supply of Covishield vaccines we have requisitioned for, we shall reopen all our clinics and mega centres accordingly. Otherwise, the citizens’ wait for the Covishield doses may get longer,” said a KMC health department official.
However, KMC continued to administer Covaxin doses from its 38 clinics and
Roxy Cinema
building. “We have administered around 13,000 Covaxin doses from our clinics on Friday,” a KMC health department official said.
Before the KMC decided to shut the Covishield clinics on Thursday, each of the civic body’s 102 clinics was administering 200 doses (on an average) daily for the past two weeks.
Besides, the mega centres were administering over 400 doses every day. A section of KMC officials associated with the vaccination process conceded that the ‘forced closure’ of the Covishield clinics and mega centres would result in a huge backlog of vaccines.
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