The Centre has promised the Bengal government 1.54 crore Covid vaccine doses for October, an official in the state health department has said.
Bengal has already administered over 6.01 crore doses of Covid vaccines. Another eight crore doses have to be administered before the current vaccinable population in the state — those who are 18 or above — is fully covered.
It may take between six and eight more months to fully vaccinate this group, provided the state keeps getting doses like it did in the past two months.
“The vaccinable population in our state, which is the number of people who are 18 years or above, is seven crore. That means we have to administer 14 crore doses to fully vaccinate this population. We have already administered about six crore doses. So we will have to administer another 8 crore,” said Ajay Chakraborty, the state’s director of health services.
The health department, he said, has the capacity “to comfortably administer 1.25 crore Covid vaccine doses” in a month.
“If the supply remains adequate, we can complete the double dose vaccination of the seven crore people in another 6 to 8 months,” Chakraborty added.
This number will change once those below 18 become eligible for Covid vaccines.
In September, the Union government had supplied 1.54 crore doses to the Bengal health department, all of which had been administered by clinics run by the state government and local bodies.
Private hospitals source their supplies directly from the manufacturers.
The Centre had initially promised Bengal 1.33 crore doses for September but the actual allocation was higher than that.
“Over the last two months, we have been getting about 20 lakh more doses than promised. For October, we have been promised 1.54 crore doses. We hope to finally get around 1.75 crore doses,” the official said.
There are several festive occasions in October and vaccination is likely to be low on those days.
The health department is considering keeping at least some vaccination centres, such as the ones in district hospitals and medical colleges, open during the Puja.