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Nearly 700,000 Covishield vaccines to reach Kolkata today
The vaccines would first be taken to the central store of the health department in Kolkata from where they would be sent to 941 Covid chain points across the state
With four days remaining for the Covid vaccination drive to begin, around 700,000 Covishield vaccines are scheduled to arrive in Kolkata on Tuesday.
“The first consignment of Covishield vaccines, comprising 689,000 doses, is scheduled to arrive in Kolkata in the afternoon from Pune’s Serum Institute,” said a top official of the state health department.
Dry runs have already been carried out across the state in this month itself. While the first dry run was done at three sites in North 24 Parganas, it was carried out in all the districts, including Kolkata, later.
The vaccines would first be taken to the central store of the health department in Kolkata from where they would be sent to 941 Covid chain points across the state.
Also read | First Covishield vaccines to arrive in Delhi today
The state government has identified 44,000 vaccinators and more than 4,000 vaccine administration session sites for phase-1 vaccination. Around 580,000 government and private healthcare workers have been enrolled. Data of another 250,000 police personnel and 125,000 municipal workers was also being uploaded.
“We have formed a state level committee headed by the chief secretary, state level task force, district level task forces and block level task forces. All these are meeting regularly to ensure all necessary arrangements for Covid-19 vaccine administration in a time-bound manner,” said another official.
Covid-19 cases have come down drastically in the state in the past two months. On November 1, West Bengal had more than 36,000 active cases. This dropped to around 7,000 on Monday.
Till date, the state has reported 561,000 Covid-19 cases out of which, 9,957 people have died. Kolkata and North 24 Parganas district have reported the maximum cases in the state.
