Mumbai: About 40K people inoculated amid vaccine shortage

Amid shortage of vaccine across the city, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) managed to vaccinate less than 40,000 beneficiaries on Monday. According to the data, 39,300 were inoculated in the last 24 hours, of which only 39 were administered with Covaxin. However the shortage of Covaxin still persists following remaining doses being kept for a second dose.

Suresh Kakani, Additional Municipal Commissioner, said they have around 2.35 lakh doses following which they started vaccination at private hospitals. “We are expecting more doses in the next two to three days as current stock can last for a week,” he said.

Dr Mangala Gomare, chief of BMC’s public health department, said, “We will give permissions to private hospitals to tie up with offices having over 100 employees to set up vaccination camps there. This will help us cover maximum cit- izens in the permitted age group.”

This is in line with the Central government’s guidelines, civic officials said.

Dr Gomare added, “There will be a set of protocols to be followed by private hospitals like having doctors and an emergency vehicle in case of adverse effects. The whole proc- ess will be done as per the guidelines issued by the government from time to time.”