About 1.05 crore Covid jabs will be required to give booster doses to frontline and healthcare workers, and vaccinate those in the 15-18 age group in Bengal, an official of the state government said on Sunday.
Those who are aged 60 or older and are suffering from comorbidities are also eligible for boosters but the state government has no estimate of their numbers.
The state health department is awaiting a detailed guideline from the Centre on implementation of the latest decisions on Covid vaccination, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday.
In a televised address, the Prime Minister said India would open the vaccination campaign to minors aged above 15 from January 3 and start administering “precautionary” jabs, or booster doses, from January 10 to healthcare and frontline workers and senior citizens with comorbidities.
“We have about 45 lakh children in the 15-18 age group. We have enough stocks to administer the first dose to them. We will be able to cover them quickly,” Bengal health secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam said.
“Our estimate is that about 15 lakh doses will be needed to give the booster dose to the frontline and healthcare workers,” Nigam said.
“We need 90 lakh doses to fully vaccinate the 45 lakh children who have become eligible for Covid jabs. Add to that the 15 lakh doses needed for frontline and healthcare workers. We need 1.05 crore jabs for these three groups,” said a health department official.
“We are awaiting a detailed guideline from the Union government. Hopefully, a guideline will be given on Monday,” the official said.
Another official said the health department did not have ready data on the number of people in Bengal who were above 60 and suffering from comorbidities.
“There is a non-communicable diseases burden data. We have to scan it and take out the relevant data on comorbidities in those who are 60 and above,” said the official.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) had last year conducted a survey in the city to identify those suffering from at least one comorbidity. This survey will give an idea of the number of senior citizens with comorbidities in Kolkata.
“We will have to depend on awareness programmes to reach out to those who are above 60 and with comorbidities so that they take the booster shot. This could be a good alternative in the absence of ready data on that section of the population in the state,” said a health department official.
Officials of the KMC said they would need a steady supply of doses to vaccinate the new groups. The number of people being vaccinated in KMC-run vaccination centres every day has come down from 40,000 a few months ago to 8,000.
“We have some capacity to raise the number of vaccinations. But we will need help on two fronts. We need to have a steady supply of vaccines. Also, we may need some additional vaccinators to administer the doses to the newly eligible groups,” said a KMC official.
The state health department had provided the KMC with additional vaccinators in its Covid vaccination centres. They have now gone back to their original place of work.
Once the number of eligible people increases again, the civic body will need additional vaccinators to administer the doses, said a KMC official.
