The poor supply of COVID vaccines have derailed the vaccination drive under the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) as only 6 lakh eligible citizens has taken the first dose so far. The total number of eligible citizens above 18 years is around 11 lakh and the population of the city is 15 lakh.
For the last two weeks, the civic body has not been getting an adequate number of doses to even run all the centres dedicated for COVID vaccines. Most of the centres are closed and vaccination is being administered at hardly three centres.
As per the data available with the civic health department, a total of 6,00,997 citizens have taken the first dose and 1,54,927 citizens second dose. “NMMC has already administered around 6 lakh of the total 11 lakh eligible citizens. As per the government data, of the 15 lakh population, 11 lakh citizens are above 18 years and they are eligible for COVID vaccine,” said an official from the Health Department.
However, of the 6 lakh citizens who received the first dose of vaccine, majority of them had taken in private hospitals due to poor supply of vaccines at the government or civic-run centres. For the last few days, the civic body is getting hardly 10,000 doses a week and it lasts a maximum of one day, while the civic body can vaccinate more than 25,000 people a day with the current infrastructure.
Civic chief Abhijit Bangar said that they are getting around 8,000 to 10,000 doses in a week that lasts hardly for a day or two and the remaining days in the week, there is no normal vaccination. However, the civic body has created enough infrastructure to vaccinate between 20,000 to 25,000 citizens per day.
Meanwhile, the civic body has decided to inoculate Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine to senior citizens, and ordered 10,000 doses from Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. Dr. Reddy’s has the sole distribution rights of the first 250 million doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in India. However, the civic body requires state government permission to inoculate vaccines procured by itself as the central government is providing vaccines free of cost. While talking to FPJ, civic chief Bangar had told that they have contacted the state government for clarification and they would proceed after getting confirmation from them.
