Covid-19:Mumbai civic body aims to vaccinate over 3K healthcare workers on Day 4

As of Wednesday, 5,251 healthcare workers had been vaccinated in Mumbai, followed by at least 10 cases of minor adverse effects post vaccination

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) aims to vaccinate over 3,000 healthcare workers on Friday, the fourth day of vaccination in the city.

A Covid-19 vaccine shot being administered in Mumbai. (Satish Bate/HT Photo)

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.

As of Wednesday, 5,251 healthcare workers had been vaccinated in Mumbai, followed by at least 10 cases of minor adverse effects post vaccination. Few doctors had also complained of feeling feverish, weakness or body ache for one day post vaccination.

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner of BMC, said, “We aim to vaccinate around 3,000-4,000 healthcare workers everyday. Starting Friday, we will continue to do so until we vaccinate all the 130,000 identified healthcare workers for the first phase.”

In order to increase the turnout at vaccination centres, BMC from Wednesday also allowed walk-in vaccination for 130,000 healthcare workers. Earlier, all those eligible were given appointment slots; however, from Wednesday, all healthcare workers were allowed to visit any vaccination centre without any appointment.

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 1. Kakani added, “We have requested private hospitals and nursing homes to educate their healthcare staff on getting the vaccination. We will also start awareness drives on a bigger scale when vaccination for the general public kicks off.”

Meanwhile, BMC anticipates that the second lot of 125,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses will arrive from the Serum Institute of India (SII) in Pune on Friday.

However, BMC has not received any information on the same. “The delivery of the vaccine might be delayed due to the fire at SII on Thursday. However, our vehicles are on stand by, and they can reach Pune at short notice for the collection of vaccine doses,” added Kakani.

Earlier, BMC had received 139,500 Covid-19 doses from SII on January 13.