The Bengal government has decided to undertake a week-long vaccination drive from April 16 in Calcutta following a sudden spurt in Covid-19 positive cases in the city.
“We have decided to start the vaccination drive in coordination with the CMC (Calcutta Municipal Corporation) to send a message to people at large that vaccines are safe and it is required to prevent the spread of the virus. We will try to administer vaccines to 35,000 to 40,000 people everyday in the city during this period,” said a senior health department official.
According to sources, right now, about 25,000 people are inoculated every day in the city while the figure is about 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh in the state everyday.
Before launching the drive, the state government has ensured a steady supply of vaccines in the state.
A source said, because of irregularity in supply of vaccines for the past few days, the number of jabs could not cross 2.5 lakh on Monday.
“The chief secretary has written to the Union health secretary urging him to keep a steady supply of vaccines in the state as Bengal is one of the few states where wastage of vaccines is almost nil and coverage is very high,” said an official.
After about 4 lakh Covishield vaccines were supplied on Monday, the state received 2 lakh Covaxin vaccines on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the state would get another 3 lakh doses of Covaxin.
“The state has been assured that there will be a steady supply of vaccines. After securing the assurance, the plan to take up the vaccination drive in Calcutta has been framed,” said another official.
According to the plan, all eligible people would be given vaccines from the health units of all 144 wards of the CMC.
“People can visit the health units with valid documents like Aadhaar and register their names. They will be given vaccines on the same day. The walk-in mode would be initiated to ensure that a maximum number of people can be covered during the period,” said a source.
The plan to start the vaccination drive in Calcutta was initiated considering that about 1,200 cases were being reported from the city everyday and elections were being held in the city.
“The vaccination drive would also help generate awareness among the people. This is the need of the hour, particularly when no restrictions could be imposed in the city as elections are yet to be completed here,” said another official.
The state government also urged large housing complexes to arrange on-site vaccination programmes as this was allowed by the Centre recently.
“Housing complexes can contact private hospitals or the health department if they can arrange at least 100 eligible persons willing to get the jabs,” said an official.
The chief secretary, Alapan Bandyopadhyay, on Tuesday held a meeting with all chambers of commerce in the city at Nabanna where the state government urged them to ensure that private companies followed the Covid-19 protocols.
“Maintaining physical distancing, sanitisation of offices, staggered attendance of employees, encouraging employees to work from home and taking initiatives to conduct on-site vaccination programmes are the few initiatives the private companies take to prevent the spread of the virus,” said a source.