Shortage of doses in Mumbai: Vax drive to remain suspended at 300 centres over weekend

For the second day in a row, on Saturday, vaccination drive at over 300 centres run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and state government will remain suspended due to lack of vaccine doses. The vaccination drive remains shut every Sunday. However, the drive will continue as per schedule at private hospitals.

On Friday, the vaccination drive was suspended owing to lack of doses.

In a statement on Friday, the BMC said, “Vaccination will remain suspended on Saturday, July 10, 2021, at government and municipal vaccination centres in the city due to insufficient vaccine stock available under the Covid-19 prevention vaccination campaign. The vaccination drive will resume once vaccine stocks become available to the corporation.”

Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner of the BMC said, “We are expecting to get around 85,000 doses on Saturday, and then, we will resume the drive on Monday. Further, in the coming days, we are expecting maximum doses for Mumbai, to undertake the drive aggressively.”

The BMC had expected fresh stock of vaccines on Friday, but it did not receive any, due to which the decision was taken to call off the drive. According to BMC officials, the central storage facility of vaccines has been out of stock since Wednesday, and there is a minuscule amount of Covaxin available with few centres.

In total, there are 401 vaccination centres in the city, of which, 283 are civic-run, 20 are of state government and the rest are private vaccination centres. Previously, the vaccination drive was similarly suspended at 300 vaccination centres on July 1 and 9, owing to vaccine shortage. Before that, Mumbai had suspended vaccination drive for the 18-45 age group between the second week of May to June, owing to the same reason.

Meanwhile, as of Thursday, 5,929,190 citizens have been vaccinated in the city so far, of which 2,462,079 in private hospitals and the rest in public centres. Of the total, 1,247,410 are fully vaccinated with both doses.