A number of housing complexes, schools and market associations have requested the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to hold camps for Covid booster doses, said an official of the civic body.
Some camps have already been completed while a few more are in the pipeline. Fresh applications are welcome, a civic official said.
Mayor Firhad Hakim had said on July 23 that the KMC was prepared to conduct special camps for administering booster doses if housing complexes or some institutions approached them. Since then the civic body has been receiving applications for precaution or booster dose camps.
“We held a camp at South City on Saturday where nearly 200 people were vaccinated. We have received applications from traders of College Street market, Vishudhanand Hospital and the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy. The department of posts also wants us to hold camps at the Yogajog Bhavan and at the General Post Office,” said a senior official of the KMC.
The KMC had held a camp at the Upohar Housing Complex in Mukundapur even before the mayor had publicly announced the civic body’s intent to hold camps at housing complexes and other institutions.
About 500 booster doses were administered in Upohar where the camp was held over two days in the second half of July.
While the KMC will provide vaccines, the hosts have to arrange an internet connection, a laptop or a computer and an air-conditioned room where the camp will be held.
At least 100 people should take the doses at the camps, a prerequisite for the camps to be organised. “We are asking for an air-conditioned room so that the vaccines remain in good condition.
Our staff will carry the vaccine vials from the nearest vaccination centre and remain there till the vials are consumed,” said the official.
The KMC can vaccinate about 250 people in a day at any camp, said the official. The camps are meant for administering booster doses only and people should not use these as platforms to get their second doses.
“We may give one or two people the second doses if we have vaccines left, but we will not administer second doses on large scale in these camps,” said the official.
The hosts must provide two persons who will be trained on how to enter the details of those being vaccinated in these camps in an online system.
The data entry operators will be trained a day before the camp will be held. “We do not have adequate manpower to send data entry operators to the camps because we will also run vaccination in our 150 centres across the city where the operators have to remain present,” said the official.
The union government has allowed free precaution doses at government clinics to everyone for 75 days from July 15. The seventy-five-day window will end on September 30.
Before July 15, those who were between 18 and 59 were required to take the shots at private centres and pay Rs 380 for a jab.
Only healthcare workers and frontline workers in the 18-59 age group and anyone who was 60 years or more were eligible to take their precaution doses at government centres for free.