At a time when the health department of the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) has stepped up its coronavirus vaccination drive amid the second wave of coronavirus infections, it is staring at supply shortage of vaccines which can hamper its efforts towards maximizing coverage in the twin-city.
The civic administration has received a total of 1,02,260 doses including 94,000 Covishield and 8,620 Covaxin doses so far. Till Tuesday, the health department administered 89,414 doses (including first and second shot) since the launch of the drive, reducing the stock of Covishleld and Covaxin to 10,480 and 2,210 doses respectively.
With an average of 5,400 vaccinations every day at 11 public health care facilities and nine private centres, MBMC's currently available stock can last for only two to three days.
“We are receiving supply at frequent intervals but in small quantities, however we are confident to get vaccines in time so that the drive is not interrupted.” confirmed, deputy civic chief Sambhaji Waghmare.
As the twin-city witnessed its biggest leap in the number of fresh Covid-19 detections and active cases, the MBMC had further intensified its efforts to expand the ambit of the vaccination drive. Three more vaccination centres have been added taking the total number of private and public centres to 21. The drive is supposed to remain operational throughout April, including on gazetted holidays.
The MBMC is said to have requested 1 lakh Covishield doses and 25,000 Covaxin doses from the government. A total of 81,729 people have been vaccinated and 7,685 have received their second dose till Tuesday evening.
As per official statistics, 41,506 senior citizens (above 60 years) have gotten themselves vaccinated out of which 1,208 have received their second shot. Similarly, the first shot of vaccine has been given to 27,370 people aged between 45 to 59 years with comorbidities.
13,313 health care workers have been vaccinated including 4,553 who received their second shot. On the other hand, 5,301 frontline workers got themselves inoculated for the first dose and 1,634 others for the second dose taking the total to 6,935.
