40% vaccination in Mumbai done at private hospitals, shows data

Over three months after private hospitals were permitted to conduct Covid vaccination, nearly 40% of the total vaccination in the city is done by private hospitals, according to the data of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)

Over three months after private hospitals were permitted to conduct Covid vaccination, nearly 40% of the total vaccination in the city is done by private hospitals, according to the data of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

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On Friday, the city also crossed the one million mark for the 18-44 age group as a total of 1,013,875 citizens in the age group have been vaccinated. Of the total 961,081 were vaccinated in private hospitals.

The city has administered 4.6 million vaccine doses as of Thursday, of which, 1.7 million vaccine doses have been administered at private hospitals.

The city has a total of 375 active vaccination centres, of which 89 are private. According to BMC officials, with every passing day, vaccination conducted by private hospitals is increasing as they have better stock as compared to public vaccination centres.

For example, on June 17, a total of 70,115 vaccine doses were administered in the city, of which 56,019 were administered at private hospitals. The imbalance is considering - private hospitals have more stock than that of the corporation and also because vaccination for 18 years to 44 years is shut in the corporation since the second week of May 2021.

The BMC is vaccinating citizens between 18 to 44 years only in case of students going abroad, citizens going abroad for jobs or those participating in Tokyo Olympics. However, vaccination at private hospitals is open for all.

Until June 17, a total of 973,568 citizens between the age group of 18 to 44 have been vaccinated, followed by 3,018 lactating mothers, 1,348,009 citizens between the age group of 45 to 59 and 1,318,898 and remaining healthcare, frontline workers.

A total of 4,326,427 citizens have been vaccinated, of which, 3,470,200 have taken their first dose and the remaining have taken their second dose. In the city, 4,015,818 have been administered with Covishield, 309,702 have taken Covaxin and the remaining 907 have taken Sputnik.

The Covid vaccination started on January 16 in the city, with healthcare workers followed by frontline workers.

Starting March, senior citizens were added, following those above 45 years of age. From May 1, those between the age group of 18 to 44 were also allowed to get vaccinated. However, with the increase in citizens eligible for vaccination, the supply went down resulting in fewer citizens getting the jab in May 2021.

The BMC got 265,000 vaccine doses in January, 571,000 vaccine doses were received in February, 810,950 vaccine doses in March, 947,500 vaccines doses in April and 523,440 vaccine doses in May, due to which vaccination got slowed down in the city.

The BMC has estimated vaccination of 9 million citizens eligible for vaccination in 18-44 years of age group. On Friday, total 61,710 citizens were vaccinated. Overall, 4,38,8137 citizens have been vaccinated in the city. 22,321 have taken both doses in 18-44 age group, according to BMC data.

Meanwhile, Dr Siddarth Paliwal, a city-based physician said, “We need to focus on vaccinating more citizens between the age group of 18 to 44. Of the total figure, around 22% is the ratio of vaccination in the 18 to 44 years age group. Considering the factor of economy and third wave, vaccinating more youngsters will help to ease the burden on health infrastructure.”