Govt-run centres only have Covaxin; state writes to Centre seeking Covishield, Corbevax
A woman gets her shot at Cooperage Garden, Colaba, in July. File pic
Vaccination centres across the state are seeing a rush with more people turning up in view of the Covid scare and the global rise in cases. The state is reporting around 10,000 vaccinations daily currently, a significant jump from around 3,000 vaccinations a day recorded last week. Government-run Covid vaccination centres currently only have Covaxin as the stock of Covishield and Corbevax was exhausted a month ago. Private hospitals have reported a 10-fold rise in vaccination numbers.
A woman gets a dose of Covid vaccine at BYL Nair Hospital. File pic
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State Immunisation Officer Dr Sachin Desai said, “A week ago, the daily vaccination figures were barely reaching the 3,000-mark. But since Covid cases surged in other countries, people are turning up for vaccines. Currently, we are vaccinating around 10,000 people across the state daily. We have 17 lakh doses of Covaxin in stock and have written to the Central government to send us Covidshield and Corbevax too.”
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The trend is the same in Mumbai with the number of daily vaccinations jumping to around 2,000 this week from 300-400 last week. On Wednesday, 2,004 people were administered a dose of vaccine in the city. Due to the rise in demand and shortage of vaccines, civic-run centres are not able to perform well. Private vaccination centres, however, are doing well. Of the 2,004 vaccinations on Wednesday, 1,715 were from private vaccination centres, 245 from civic-run centres and 44 doses were administered at government-run centres.
A senior official from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said, “It is a fact that we only have Covaxin for the past two months. There was no demand for other vaccines and the scare was also not there. Now that people have learnt about the rise in Covid cases in other countries, they are showing up to get their jabs.” The situation is different at private vaccination centres. Dr V Ravishankar, CEO of Lilavati Hospital, said, “We have seen a 10-fold rise in vaccination this week. A few days ago, hardly 10 people used to come for vaccination which has now increased to 100. Currently, we have only Covishield in stock.”
Dr Virendra Chauhan, centre head, Wockhardt Hospital in Mumbai Central, said, “Last week we were seeing only five to six takers for vaccines but now more than 60 people are turning up daily.” Meanwhile, Maharashtra on Thursday reported 27 new Covid cases including nine from Mumbai. The state also logged one fatality in Ratnagiri district. Currently, the state has 168 active cases including 50 from Mumbai.
Since the random screening of international passengers started, a total of 79,688 passengers have arrived in the state. Of these, 1,466 were screened and three were Covid positive. The patients are from Pune, Goa and Navi Mumbai. The total case count in the state has gone up to 81,36,615 of which 11,54,195 were from Mumbai. Similarly, of the 1,48,417 deaths across the state, 19,746 are from Mumbai.
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