Mumbai: Pregnant women to be vaccinated from Monday

A beneficiary at the Bharatratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital, Kandivli on Wednesday. Pic/Satej Shinde

Vaccinations for pregnant women will start from Monday in public centres. There are an approximate one lakh pregnant women in the city. However, the response from lactating mothers, who approximately number the same, for vaccines has been low. Even after one and a half months, only 3,463 of these women have been administered the jab.

The vaccinations for lactating mothers started on May 26 in Mumbai and the public centres registered 489 women on the first day. But the response has been dull thereafter. At least 49 lactating mothers received the doses on Wednesday.

"There isn't any paper required and we allowed walk-in facility for lactating mothers. We don't know the exact reasons behind the low numbers," said Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health officer of the BMC.

As per the latest guidelines from the central government, vaccinations for pregnant women will be rolled out in the state on Monday. "The training for health workers for the same is organised on Thursday.

We will monitor the women for the next 20 days after vaccination. Health workers are expected to tell the benefits as well as side effects of the vaccines to these women and they need to take extra care if they have comorbidities," said Gomare.

Both the public and private vaccination centres immunised a total of 90,532 people on Wednesday. At least 58,311 vaccines have been administered at public centres and 32,221 vaccines were given at private centres.

Of the vaccines given on Wednesday, 48,268 were given to people between 18 and 44 years. At least 27,332 were given at civic-run centres, 1,467 were administered by government centres and 19,469 were given by private centres. Out of the total vaccinations, 10,150 vaccines were given to senior citizens and 30,287 were given to those between 45 and 59 years.