‘Start vaccination phase 3 before 2nd wave hits city’

MUMBAI: With the sudden spike in new Covid-19 cases, health officials and city doctors have begun emphasising on the need to start a mass immunisation programme for those above 50 years, at the earliest.

Individuals aged above 50 years with underlying health conditions are most vulnerable to contracting Covid-19. In Mumbai alone, more than 80% of the total 11,430 deaths (till February 18) were from this age category.

In a meeting held on Thursday with civic officials, a suggestion to speed up the third phase of the vaccination process was put forward by the state Covid-19 taskforce.

“With the rise in cases, a suggestion was made to begin the third phase of vaccination so that those above the age of 50 can start getting inoculated as they are the most vulnerable group in the population,” said Dr Gautam Bhansali, a consultant physician with Bombay Hospital, who was part of the meeting.

After the first dose of the vaccine, it generally takes around two weeks for the development of antibodies needed to fight against Sars-cov-2 — the virus that causes Covid-19. Doctors said the faster the elderly group gets vaccinated, the sooner the spread of the virus can be contained.

“If we can immunise the vulnerable group at the earliest, we can control the spread of infection if we are heading toward a second wave of the pandemic, like in Europe,” Bhansali added.

Citing a report released recently by the Oxford University, which produced the Covishield vaccine, Dr Lancelot Pinto, an epidemiologist, said, “It has been seen in the study that the first shot is enough to give protection [after antibodies are developed] against the Covid-19 virus for almost three months. The second dose, which acts as a booster, may further strengthen the immunity for more days.”

A similar appeal to vaccinate those above 50 years was recently put forth by ward officers. A ward officer from M-west ward, which covers Chembur and Tilak Nagar, with the highest Covid-19 growth rate, also requested the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to initiate the third phase of the mass immunisation programme. “We have been told that the direction to start the third phase has to be initiated by the Central government. Without its approval, the civic body cannot start the third phase,” said Prithviraj Chauhan, assistant commissioner, M-west ward. Civic officials, however, said the third phase is expected to begin from the first week of March, where over 3 million probable people in the city will be immunised.

“Though we haven’t been given clear instructions, the third phase is likely to start along with the ongoing first and second phases, in the first week of March. This will be beneficial for those in the vulnerable group,” said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner, G-north ward, which covers Dharavi, Dadar and Mahim.

Starting the third phase will be an uphill task for the civic body as only 35% of the total 400,000 registered healthcare workers (HCWS) and frontline workers have been inoculated so far. Additionally, due to the ongoing technical glitch in the centralised COWIN mobile application, private hospitals are also facing problems in the immunisation process for their in-house HCWS.

“It is expected that the civic body will allow private hospitals to vaccinate the public in the third phase. But before doing so, the Central government needs to fix the app or it will further lead to chaos,” said a senior official from a private hospital who has been vaccinating HCWS since Wednesday.