Irregular vaccine supply keeps PMC centres shut

PUNE For the past three days, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has had an irregular supply of Covid-19 vaccines

PUNE For the past three days, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has had an irregular supply of Covid-19 vaccines.

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On Friday, the civic body had to shut down all its vaccination centres due to a shortage of vaccines. On Saturday too, the civic body only had Covishield vaccines as no Covaxin doses were supplied.

The city saw maximum vaccinations on August 31 when more than 234,000 doses were given.

In the wake of a much anticipated third Covid-19 wave, vaccinating as many people as possible is crucial.

Dr Suryakant Deokar said, “On Thursday we had to administer only Covishield at PMC centres as we did not have Covaxin. On Friday we could not get Covaxin or Covishield. On Saturday we only had Covishield. The delay in vaccination does not just hamper our vaccination drive, but it also further delays the second shot for many beneficiaries. Despite the Ganesh festival, we have kept our centres open and functioning.”

In wake of the upcoming festive season, the central team has on multiple occasions said that the third wave could hit in September and so the administration must prepare accordingly to ensure that there are enough beds and also enough oxygen supply. Vaccination has proven that it does bring down the severity of symptoms and also the percentage of reinfections or deaths among those vaccinated is nominal - 0.17% reinfections among those with one shot of the vaccine and 0.21% among those who have been fully vaccinated. Of the 15,137 reinfections 90 deaths have been reported in the district.