Mumbai: BMC centres start running out of vaccines again

The empty vaccination centre at the Bharatratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal General Hospital on Friday. Pic/Satej Shinde

The stock of vaccines at the Bharatratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal General Hospital, also known as Shatabdi Hospital, Kandivli, ran out after a week on Friday.

Could this be the start of another vaccination shortage nightmare for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation just like last week? The civic body was short of vaccines last week due to which it had to halt the drive at private vaccination centres for two days and various civic-run hospitals for a day. At Shatabdi now, there are plans to allow vaccinations only for those with prior appointment.

Even as the BMC authorities had recently claimed there are enough vaccine doses available with them for now, Shatabdi hospital even turned away those with prior appointment on Friday. The authorities at the hospital said that they have been given just 50 vials which means about 500 doses whereas the centre averages around 1,300 beneficiaries' daily, and thus they have decided to allow only those with prior online appointment on Saturday.

The Medical Superintendent of the hospital, Dr Pratibha Patil, said, "There was shortage in the stock that came in from the authorities, and so we had to halt the drive. We have 500 doses now and we will be allowing those coming in with prior appointment to get vaccinated at our centre from Saturday."

While on the one hand the centres are falling short of doses, on the other, the BMC aims at continuing the drive in two shifts at few of its centres. The total turnout of the senior citizens, those aged 45 and above, and health and frontline workers on Friday was 47,724 across the city at various civic and private vaccination centres. However, the BMC has clarified that the numbers include those inoculated in the second shift on Thursday and Friday's first shift.

Further there were about seven cases of adverse effects reported on Friday across the 126 vaccination centres that were running with 226 units. A total of 18,91,153 beneficiaries have been inoculated, out of which 2,31,495 have been fully vaccinated as they have been administered both doses.

The turnout of senior citizens was 14,727, whereas of people aged 45 and above was 28,704. The number of health care workers administered vaccine shots was hardly 1,222 and that of the front line workers was 3,071.