Mumbai: Gearing up for the vaccination drive which is likely to be rolled out next week, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is now planning to set up 75 centres across the city, where it plans to inoculate 50,000 people per day. Health officials said all the preparations related to the mass vaccination drive were in the final stage and currently, they were selecting new vaccine centres and the process would be completed this week.
There will be eight civic hospitals -- King Edward Memorial, BYL Nair, Cooper, Sion, the Bhabha hospitals at Kurla and Bandra, Rajawadi and the Jogeshwari trauma centre -- that will be utilised to administer the vaccine to healthcare workers in 15 days, after the vaccine arrives.
Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said every ward would have two to four Covid-19 vaccine centres, for which they have planned to start preparations this week. “We have eight covid-19 vaccines centres, and are now preparing to set up 67 more vaccines centres. All these centres will be at dispensaries, paediatric, peripheral and maternity hospitals. We have planned to vaccinate 50,000 people per day,” he said.
Kakani had also taken stock of the preparations at the eight centres in the city. He said that the BMC was ready to roll out the vaccination programme within 24 hours of the vaccine’s availability.
Meanwhile, the BMC has identified close to 50 lakh people to be vaccinated in all three phases. The civic body is in the process of uploading details on the Co-WIN application. These individuals are healthcare workers, frontline workers and senior citizens. Senior civic officials said that uploading details on the Co-WIN app would make the process easier.
As per the BMC’s plan, healthcare workers will get the Covid-19 shots in the first phase of vaccination, followed by frontline workers such as the police force and conservancy workers in the second phase. In the third phase, citizens above the age of 50 and those suffering from comorbidities will be vaccinated. As per the surveys conducted under ‘My Family, My Responsibility’ initiative, there are more than 30 lakh individuals who are above 50 years of age.
“Our teams of vaccinators have completed their training and we may pursue something similar to dry runs by next week to ensure that everything is in place. Once the data of beneficiaries is uploaded on the Co-WIN app, it will ease the process of vaccination. I will be taking stock of our storage facilities over the weekend and reviewing our distribution plan,” Kakani added.
