Mumbai: More than 70 COVID vaccine centres across the city have been shut down due to a shortage of vaccines, of which 25 of them were closed down on Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile jumbo COVID-19 centre at BKC has also suspended the vaccination drive on Friday morning after they were dried up with the vaccine stock. Officials said their drive has been affected badly as they are yet to receive 1.80 lakh dosages from the centres which they expect to arrive by afternoon or evening.
Suresh Kakani, Additional Municipal Commissioner said 71 of the 120 centres, mainly at private hospitals, did not start vaccination on Friday due to unavailability of vaccines, while some other centres will also suspend it within a few hours. “We are expected to get 1.80 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccines today afternoon until most of the centres will be dried up following which they will shut their centres,” he said.
According to the civic data, until April 7, Mumbai had received 17.04 lakh vaccines, of which 15.80 lakh have been vaccinated, while 1.48 dosages were left until Thursday. Moreover, nearly 1.08 dosages have been kept for giving the first dose, while 44,180 dosages have been reserved to give the second dose to the beneficiaries. However, only 1.02 per cent of vaccines have been wasted so far.
Senior doctors from the BKC jumbo centres said they had stock that could have last for two to three days, but since Thursday afternoon a message going around that BKC jumbo centres have vaccines so beneficiaries can take their doses. Following which there was huge chaos of beneficiaries waiting for their number to take the vaccine shots. “We had only 160 doses until morning but due to a large number of beneficiaries turning up to our centre to take vaccines all our stock has been dried up. Following which we had to shut down the centre until we get another dosage,” he said.
According to sources, the vaccination centres mainly in BMC or state government-run hospitals, are going to continue vaccination until the stock gets over, and thereafter they will also suspend it.
When asked, Civic officials said that the centres where vaccine doses are available to have suspended the vaccination, but exact details were unavailable with her.
