Free booster dose, day 1: Over 8K, above 18 yrs of age, jabbed till 5 pm
KOLKATA: On the first day of administration of free Covid booster doses among the people belonging to the age bracket 18-59, Bengal on Friday witnessed huge influx of people at various Covid vaccination centers (CVC).
Various CVCs across the state saw long queues from the morning while some enthusiastic people failed to get a jab. Application of free precautionary doses was rolled out at all government CVCs on Friday. The demand for booster doses has picked up for the last one week with Covid cases on the rise. The Mayor’s Health Clinic at Chetla saw a huge turn up on Friday morning.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has administered around 8,722 booster doses of Covishield till 5.15 pm on Friday while 752 booster doses of Covaxin have been administered from various centers.
Health officials are concerned over limited stock of vaccines. State health secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam on Thursday wrote a letter to the Union health secretary, urging them for fresh supply of doses as booster drives can be affected due to inadequate stock.
According to sources, Bengal currently has around 41 lakh doses of the Covid vaccine in its stock - 16 lakh Covishield and 25 lakh Covaxin doses. Around 5 crore adults
will be given booster doses in the state with the available stock. Around 4.8 crore is due for Covishield booster jabs while about 58 lakh are in the queue for the Covaxin precautionary doses.
State health department has the infrastructure and manpower to administer at least 15 lakh doses a day. The stock in hand will be exhausted soon and the process may be hampered if the Centre does not send fresh stock on immediate basis,” said a senior health official.
Covishield stock is likely to dry up in the next three to four days while Covaxin stock may last for about a week, sources said. As people are coming for free booster doses from day 1, the existing stock would not last for long.
KMC also started administering
booster doses for the people above 18 at 150 UPHCs (Urban Primary Health Centres) including Mega Centres completely free-of-cost. Around 92 UPHCs and six 6 Mega Centres provided Covishield while 34 UPHCs and one Mega Centre administered Covaxin. The ongoing Corbevax vaccination will be provided from 16 UPHCs and one Mega Centre. KMC, other civic bodies have already taken up all measures to ensure freeof-cost booster dose vaccination within 75 days.
About 15,850 first doses have been administered on July 15 and 48,954 second doses have been given.
About 2,66,602 precautionary doses have been given on Friday. The average daily vaccination in the last 7 days has been 89,622.