Mumbai: On a second day in a row, the city civic body managed to reach 90 per cent of its daily vaccination target. The boost in the vaccination drive occurred after the civic body allowed walk-in registrations of beneficiaries of first phase of the drive.
In order to increase the turnout at vaccination centres, BMC from Wednesday allowed walk-in vaccination for 130,000 healthcare workers. Earlier, all those eligible were given appointment slots; however, starting Wednesday, all healthcare workers were allowed to visit any vaccination centre without any appointment, leading to bigger turnout.
On Friday, the Covid-19 vaccination drive in the city witnessed a total 3,539 volunteers vaccinated against the set daily target of 3,852. It was thus able to achieve 92 per cent of its daily vaccination target. This was the city's highest achievement rate since the nationwide vaccination drive kicked off.
On Saturday, total 4374 beneficiaries were vaccinated against the set target of 4852 across 10 centres, taking the achievement rate of 90 percent of the targetted total. Of the total people vaccinated on Saturday, around 5 reported Adverse event following immunization (AEFI). According to civic officials, these people complained of giddiness and were asked to stay back at the facility and were kept under observation for 30 minutes before getting discharged. "No serious cases were reported and none of the volunteers vaccinated had to be hospitalised. Those reported minor AEFI, were observed and discharged in half an hour." said a civic official.
The vaccination drive began in the city on January 16 wherein 1,926 healthcare workers were vaccinated (around 48% of the targeted total). On Tuesday and Wednesday, 50% and 52% of the targeted total was vaccinated across 10 vaccination centres in the city.
Suresh Kakani, BMC additional municipal commissioner (Health), said, " Our target is to vaccinate around 3,000-4,000 healthcare workers everyday. We plan to continue to do so until we vaccinate all the 130,000 identified healthcare workers for the first phase.”
Apart from this, BMC has also appealed to private hospitals and private nursing homes to educate their staff to go and get vaccinated if they are eligible in phase one.
Kakani added, “We have requested private hospitals and nursing homes to educate their healthcare staff on getting the vaccination. We also plan to initiate awareness drives on a bigger scale when vaccination for the general public starts.”
