Mumbai civic body reserves 20,000 Covid vaccination shots for round two

To counter a possible shortage of Covid-19 vaccine doses, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to reserve 20,000 doses of both Covishield and Covaxin on priority for the second jab to be administered to healthcare workers (HCWs) inoculated at the start of the nationwide mass immunisation programme on January 16

To counter a possible shortage of Covid-19 vaccine doses, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to reserve 20,000 doses of both Covishield and Covaxin on priority for the second jab to be administered to healthcare workers (HCWs) inoculated at the start of the nationwide mass immunisation programme on January 16.

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Along with HCWs, BMC started vaccinating frontline workers (FLWs) from Thursday. The civic body has around 70,000 HCWs who are yet to be vaccinated in the first phase. Additionally, more than 200,000 FLWs have already registered on the CoWIN app for vaccination.

For simultaneous vaccination of both groups, BMC needs more than 500,000 doses. However, till February 2, the civic body has 220,000 doses, which can cover only 106,000 individuals given that two doses have to be given 28 days apart.

Although the civic body hopes to procure the next consignment of vaccine doses from the Central government within the next few days, officers have decided to keep aside 20,000 doses for the second shot.

“This [reserving dose] is just a precautionary measure since HCWs who were vaccinated on January 16 will need to be given the second dose. Calculating a gap of 28 days from the first dose, the process is likely to start by February 14,” said Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, BMC.

As per Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) rules, beneficiaries of both Covishield and Covaxin will have to take two shots.

The first dose helps the immune system create a response against Sars-CoV-2 which causes Covid-19. The second dose further boosts the immune response to ensure long-term protection.

In the last 12 sessions of the immunisation programme, 58,590 HCWs of 79,344 targeted have been vaccinated. From Thursday, BMC started vaccinating FLWs at 12 vaccination centres. At present, the civic body has set a target of around 10,000 inoculations every day that will be gradually increased.

Dr Dilip Patil, state immunisation officer, said the Centre will provide the next batch of vaccine doses in due course, which will then be dispatched to all districts as per their requirements.