Vaccine stock low, drive at limited centres in Mumbai

Amid shortage of stock, the vaccination drive will be held at limited public centres in the city on Wednesday. This is the third time within a week that Mumbai has faced a shortage of vaccine stock, due to which some public vaccine centres had to remain closed.

Amid shortage of stock, the vaccination drive will be held at limited public centres in the city on Wednesday. This is the third time within a week that Mumbai has faced a shortage of vaccine stock, due to which some public vaccine centres had to remain closed.

A vaccination centre closed due to non-availability of Covid-19 vaccines at Ganesh Chowk, Andheri (West), in Mumbai on Tuesday. (Vijay Bate/HT)

In its statement on Tuesday night, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said, “Vaccination will be held at limited BMC and state vaccination centres tomorrow, between 9am and 5pm.” The BMC received 45,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses on Saturday night, facilitating the vaccination drive in the city on Monday. Following this, Mumbai has not received more vaccine doses. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner and in-charge of BMC’s public health department, said, “We have not received vaccine doses after Saturday. It is likely that we will receive some doses on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the centres which have stock available will continue the drive on Wednesday. Moreover, the BMC has doses of Covaxin, so some centres will administer there.”

On Tuesday night, the BMC tweeted that 11 public vaccination centres will administer Covishield on Wednesday, and 13 public centres will administer Covaxin. On Tuesday, 43,003 beneficiaries were vaccinated, of which 12,973 received their second dose, and 30,030 received their first dose. So far, a total of 1,914,771 beneficiaries have been fully vaccinated in Mumbai and 5,741,716 got their first dose.