Vaccine crunch: Only 187 immunisation centres to function in Mumbai on Monday

Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said while the city has over 45,000 Covaxin doses, the stock of Covishield is limited.

Due to vaccine shortage for a second time in a week, only 187 vaccination centres, half of the usual number under the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), will operate on Monday.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani said while the city has over 45,000 Covaxin doses, the stock of Covishield is limited.

“We are utilising Covaxin to first immunise those who need their second dose and then administering it for the first dose. We took a stock of the centres in the evening and very few have Covishield doses left,” he said.

The city usually opens close to 400 vaccination centres on a daily basis. The number is expected to be half on Monday. Private centres will work as usual.

Kakani said they expect fresh vaccine stock by Monday evening from the Maharashtra government. All vaccination centres will function as usual from Tuesday.

Mumbai last received 1.5 lakh doses on July 1. Dr Bhupendra Patil, medical officer in M-West (Chembur) ward, said they are receiving enough stock to last 2-3 days.

“We plan to keep many centres shut since they have low stock. If we allow walk-in, we may not have enough doses to administer everyone,” he added.

Dr Ajit Pampatwar, medical officer in K-West ward (Andheri West), said they are utilising maximum stocks possible in all centres instead of distributing them evenly to last over several days.

The directive to go aggressive in vaccination drives came from Kakani, who said in order to cover larger population they have decided to finish off vaccine stock as early as possible instead of inoculating a small number of people every day.

Mumbai did not carry out immunisation on Sunday. On Saturday, the city vaccinated 1.02 lakh people, of them 35,446 were jabs administered by private hospitals and the rest by state and BMC-run centres.

So far, the city has fully immunised 11.41 lakh people, 12.6 per cent of the targeted population aged over 18 years (90 lakh). At least 45.12 lakh people – 50 per cent of the targeted population – have received their first dose.

Kakani said they can vaccinate the remaining population with the first dose in the next 40 days if supply of vaccines remains steady.

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