BMC gets 2L vax jabs, pvt hospitals struggle
Civic body to give 1.1L doses to public centres for free vaccination
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has received around two lakh Covid-19 vaccine doses following which it will be distributed to the government and civic-run centres. However private hospitals are still having difficulty in conducting drives due to unavailability of vaccine stock. Officials said they are facing a huge problem in distributing the covid vaccine to the centres as they are getting stock in very less number due to which activating all covid centres is not possible due to which vaccination drive has slowed down.
Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health officer, BMC said the city had received 1.1 lakh doses on Tuesday but these would mainly be distributed among the public centres doing free vaccination. Moreover, 39 of the 49 centres did not conduct the drive on Wednesday due to unavailability of a vaccine. “With the addition of 1.1 lakh doses, the city now has stocks to last three days. Private centres may not be able to vaccinate in full capacity till the supply is streamlined,” she said. Moreover, in lieu of augmenting the capacity of COVID beds, Mulund Jumbo Facility has been closed as COVID vaccination centre.
According to the data, 36,315 were inoculated in the last 24 hours, of which only 8,464 were administered with Covaxin. However the shortage of Covaxin still persists following remaining doses being kept for a second dose.
Senior officials from the civic health department said they are facing issues in distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. “There are 130 vaccination centres and we are getting doses, sometimes as few as 20,000 and 40,000. It is a challenge to distribute such few doses among centres,” an official said.
So far 20,79,943 citizens have been vaccinated in Mumbai. Out of which 2.91 lakh citizens have taken the second dose of vaccine, 8 lakh doses have been given to senior citizens, followed by 7.05 lakh doses to people above 45 years, 3.04 lakh doses to people on the frontline, and 2.69 lakh doses to healthcare workers. Moreover out of the total vaccinations, more than 13 lakh people have been vaccinated in the municipal centres.