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Pune district reaches 9 million mark for Covid vaccinations
In the past 10 days, Pune district has inoculated at least a million people with the Covid-19 vaccine
PUNE In the past 10 days, Pune district has inoculated at least a million people with the Covid-19 vaccine, as a result of which, on Saturday, the overall number of people vaccinated stood at 9 million.
Currently, Pune is behind Mumbai in terms of total vaccinations in Maharashtra.
Ayush Prasad, chief executive officer, Zilla Parishad, said, “Pune’s vaccination drive is clearly the best in the state as we have been able to pick up the pace in a very short amount of time. The best performing vaccination centres of the state are in rural areas of Pune and we are truly grateful to the incredible nurses, data entry operators, doctors and support staff who left the festivities in their homes and chose to be on duty to vaccinate.”
“As the administration, we did not put any pressure on anyone to work on Saturday. On Saturday we could vaccinate 156,000 people of which 82,000 were in rural areas. It also noteworthy that Pune crossed the 9 million vaccination mark,” he added.
“As per the Election Commission of India, 7.887 million is the eligible population for vaccination, as per the voter list which is updated from time to time,” Prasad said.
Support from private players provided a much-needed boost. In addition to this, the Indian Red Cross Society provided a place for vaccination, cleaning arrangements, crowd control and furniture which helped create more vaccination centres in the rural areas.
On Saturday the Pune circle crossed the 200,000 mark when Pune district saw 114,312 vaccinations. On Saturday, Solapur saw 83,505 vaccinations and Satara, 4,944 vaccinations.
On August 31, Pune became the only district till day to vaccinate 200,000 people in a day. That was the day total totally, 8.14 million vaccines were administered, of which 5.94 million were first doses and 2.20 million were second doses.
Vax supply remains erratic
In September, on multiple occasions, centres had to remain shut because of inconsistent supply of the vaccine.
Dr Suryakant Deokar, PMC’s immunisation officer said, “We will not be able to vaccinate at any of our centres on Monday, neither Covishield nor Covaxin, because we have not yet got stock. In September, till now, we have had to keep our centres shut on multiple occasions. In August supply was quite steady and so it became easier for us to plan sessions and for people to ensure they can get their dose on time. However, this month has been a bit slower.”
Dr Sanjay Deshmukh, deputy director of health services Pune circle, said that if supply remains consistent as it was in August, then the entire district could be fully vaccinated in the next three months.
