Mumbai civic body plans mobile vaccination centres in city

To make the vaccination drive more aggressive, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to start mobile vaccination centres in the city

To make the vaccination drive more aggressive, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to start mobile vaccination centres in the city. According to BMC officials, once it procures additional vaccine doses from the international market, the mobile unit vehicles will visit housing societies and complexes where citizens will be able to come and get the vaccine shots.

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The city has been facing a shortage of vaccine due to which the civic body has suspended vaccination for the 18-44 category. Most of the available stock is being used to give second dose due to around 100,000 beneficiaries. The number of beneficiaries, however, will come down, once the state government directs the BMC to follow the interval gap of 12-16 weeks, from the current 8-12 weeks, for second dose of Covishield vaccine, as advised by the Centre.

The BMC has planned a special walk-in drive for second dose of Covishield for around 100,000 citizens between May 17 and 19. This number may come down now, which would mean the civic body can use some of the stock for first dose.

On Friday, 23,924 citizens were vaccinated in the city, of which 3,180 were between the age of 18 and 44, 12,323 in the 45-59 age group, 7,888 above the age of 60 years, 134 health care and 399 front line workers. Overall, so far, 2,841,349 citizens have been vaccinated in the city.

Meanwhile, civic officials said looking at the current stockpile, the plan to have mobile vaccination centres will not materialise in the next one month. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, said, “We plan to aggressively vaccinate citizens once we get sufficient vaccine doses. By sufficient doses, I mean two million to three million doses, after which we plan to start mobile vaccination centres. This will be possible after we procure bulk vaccine doses from the international bid that we floated.”

Earlier this week, the BMC floated a global expression of interest, inviting international vaccine manufacturers to deliver around 10 million vaccine doses to the city. However, the BMC has restricted the entry of China. Kakani added, “We are thinking that rather than going door-to-door, going to societies or complexes will be much faster and everyone will be comfortable this way. We will aim for locations where we can cover maximum population. This will be apart from the permission that the BMC is giving to housing societies and corporates to tie up with private hospitals for vaccination.”

According to the BMC, the required infrastructure will be set up within days after the procurement of bulk doses. A BMC official from the transport department said, “When we say mobile vaccination centres, we just need a simple ambulance to vaccinate one person at a time. The observation will be done outside the mobile vaccination centre. We can use the existing 550 Covid ambulances that will be used for arranging the cold storage. The modalities will be worked out in the coming days. Additional vehicles can be procured, if required.”