The Mamata Banerjee government has decided to focus on vaccination programmes in containment and micro containment zones to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in the state.
“We have decided to carry out vaccination programmes intensively in Covid-19 containment zones and micro containment zones. This will help prevent further spread of the virus,” said state chief secretary H.K. Dwivedi after a meeting on Covid vaccination programmes in the presence of chief minister Mamata Banerjee at Nabanna on Wednesday.
Sources in the health department said the plan to hold vaccination programmes in areas where Covid-19 positive cases are more was timely as it has been established that only mass vaccination can prevent the further spread of the virus.
Mamata, who had convened the meeting, said the state was eyeing to administer 4 lakh doses every day from next week.
“As the Centre decided to change the vaccination policy a couple of weeks back, the supply of vaccines was hit for the past few days,” she added.
The chief minister also pointed out that the state had already administered 2 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines, of which 33 lakh doses had been given to potential super-spreaders which include hawkers, transport workers, ration dealers and shopkeepers.
Right now, there are 250-odd containment zones across the state.
“As most of these containment zones are in urban areas, we have to carry out vaccination programmes to prevent the further spread of disease,” said an official.
“If we can vaccinate 4 lakh people a day, we can cover 80 per cent of the 7 crore people who have to be vaccinated before the third phase comes,” added the official.
The success of the programme, however, would depend on the supply of vaccines from the Centre to Bengal.
The chief minister’s target of giving vaccine doses to 70 lakh people in July would also depend on how many vaccine doses are sent to Bengal.
“We received 22 lakh vaccines in June.…The figure should have been at least 60 lakh given the infrastructure and population that we have. Now, bringing a maximum number of eligible people under the vaccination programme before the third wave would solely depend on how many vaccines are sent to Bengal from Delhi,” added an official.
Covaxin worry
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday also expressed concern that Covaxin was not yet authorised by the World Health Organisation, which has become a big worry for students who want to go abroad.
“Many students who want to go abroad are facing problems because the Covaxin was not authorised by WHO yet. They are facing trouble in getting a visa. Those who have received Covishield are not facing any trouble,” she said.
The chief minister asked chief secretary H.K. Dwivedi to write a letter to the Centre asking it to take initiatives to get Covaxin authorised by the WHO at the earliest.