Mumbai: COVID-19 vaccination drive to be affected at govt, civic centres unless supply resumes

BKC jumbo vaccination center at Bandra. Pic/Sameer Markande

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is left with barely 50,000 vaccine doses for Friday. Many civic centres will face a suspension of the drive unless
stock is replenished immediately.

A lack of vaccines interrupted the immunisation drive at various private hospitals on Thursday. This is likely to be the case at various government and civic-run vaccination centres on Friday if vaccines are not supplies. Twenty-five of the private hospitals operating vaccination centres faced a shortage of doses and had to stop operations.

On average, the civic body had been vaccinating around 50,000 people daily and had been crossing the 60,000 mark recently. However, on Friday, hardly 50,000 doses would be available.

A man gets vaccinated at Nair hospital on Thursday. Pic/Suresh Karkera

The BMC and government have set up 49 COVID vaccination centres and 71 private hospitals are operated as vaccination centres. Of the 71 centres, 25 private hospitals have run out of vaccines and did not conduct the drive on Thursday. The municipal body has been continuously following up with the authorities to make the vaccine available.

A total of 17,09,550 vaccine doses were made available to BMC till April 7. Of these, 15,61,420 were used. This left the BMC with 1,48,130 vaccines on Wednesday after the day's vaccination drive. From this stock, around 44,810 doses are reserved as the second dose for recipients who have received the first one, as per the instructions of the state government. As a result, on Thursday, there were about 1,03,320 doses available, of which over 50,000 were used.

Although the civic body has hardly any stock, the administration is continuously pursuing its vaccination campaign, said civic officials. According to sources, centres in Mahim, Dharavi and Bhabha hospital in Bandra are running out of stock and may have to close temporarily.

On Thursday, the number of senior citizens, those aged 45 years and above and health and frontline workers vaccinated was 56,909. A total of 15,80,727 beneficiaries have been inoculated out of which 1,77,944 have been fully vaccinated.

The turnout of senior citizens was 12,986, of those aged 45 and above was 39,805 and that of healthcare workers was 985. The number of frontline workers vaccinated was 3,133.

BMC officials said that the figures are of Wednesday's second shift and Thursday's first shift.