E-Paper
Mumbai: BMC gets first lot of 139,500 doses of Covid vaccine from Pune
In the first phase of the drive, health workers will be vaccinated with BMC having already registered 125,000 health workers on the Cowin app
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) received its first lot of 139,500 doses of Covid-19 vaccine from the Serum Institute of India (SII) on Wednesday morning at around 5.30am.
The first phase of vaccination drive is expected to start in Mumbai from January 16.
The vaccine doses have been stored at a temporary cold storage facility set at F-South ward office in Parel in central Mumbai which can handle 600,000 doses at a time. According to BMC officials, the civic body has set up a regional vaccine storage--a five-storey centralised vaccine storage centre-- at Kanjurmarg but it has not activated it yet. The facility willl be operational once the storage is substantial.
In a statement issued on Wednesday morning, the BMC said, “First consignment of Covishield vaccine arrived in Mumbai, today (13th January 2021) morning at 5.30am in which BMC received total 139,500 doses of the vaccine from Serum Institute (Pune).”
In the first phase of the drive, health workers will be vaccinated with BMC having already registered 125,000 health workers on the Cowin app — an automated system launched by the Central government to systematically administer vaccine shots across the country.
The nine vaccination centres in Mumbai are four major hospitals, KEM Hospital, BYL Nair Hospital, Cooper Hospital and Sion Hospital followed by four peripheral hospitals — Bhabha Hospital in Bandra, VN Desai Hospital in Santacruz, Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar and Bharat Ratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital in Kandivli—and the Covid-19 facility at Bandra-Kurla Complex.
The centres have a total of 72 booths for vaccination, and each booth will be handled by a team of five vaccinators.
