Ph-3 of jabs drive starts at 5 centres

NEW DELHI: The third phase of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) immunisation drive began in the city with at least four private hospitals and a government clinic vaccinating people between the ages of 18 and 44 years.

“Today it is more of a symbolic launch of the drive as vaccination has been started only at one centre for those between 18-44 years. We have already received 4.5 lakh doses from the manufacturers and now we are distributing them in all districts. From May 3, we will start the vaccination drive on a large scale in Delhi,” said Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who also visited the clinic in northwest Delhi’s Saraswati Vihar where the government kicked off the immunisation drive phase three.

So far, Delhi has received 150,000 doses of Covaxin and 300,000 doses of Covishield, as per documents seen by HT.

The drive began across four centres of Max hospital - at Shalimar Bagh, Patparganj, Panchsheel Park and BLK hospital in Rajinder Place, which also comes under the same management. “People came in large numbers for the vaccination drive on Saturday,” said an official from Max hospital.

Apollo hospitals, which had earlier said that it will begin the vaccination drive on Saturday, was yet to begin immunisations at the hospital. “Our teams are working to add the hospital to the COWIN platform. The drive will likely begin from May 3 or 4,” the hospital said. Slots for vaccination at Fortis hospital was shown to be available on Sunday on the government’s COWIN platform.

As many as 45,353 jabs were administered over the last 24 hours in Delhi, according to the daily health bulletin.

As per documents seen by HT, which was reported on Saturday, vaccination of those aged 18-44 will begin at 100 schools, and not government hospitals, with each institute hosting five session sites. Each site will be given 150 doses, suggesting a total capacity of 75,000 doses per day. The documents further state that the government plans to increase the number of schools to 274 -- one in each ward of Delhi -- by May 7.

With 17 schools/educational institutes as centres and 85 session sites, the West district will have the highest number of vaccination points. The number of centres in this district will be increased to 46 from May 7.

Even as private hospitals remained in the dark about whether they will get doses from the Delhi government, some private hospitals handling Covid-19 patients received an order stating that their staff will be deployed in nearby schools for the immunisation drive.