The Salt Lake civic body is going to start door-to-door visits across all 41 wards to find out which houses have people above 60 years who are yet to receive the Covid booster dose.
Amid a fresh rise in Covid cases, teams of health workers will visit homes across Salt Lake, Baguiati, Kestopur and parts of Rajarhat. The workers will also ask if anyone is yet to receive their first or second vaccine dose.
A senior official of the civic body’s health department said that they had informed their health workers about the exercise and given them clear guidelines to explain to people and request them to take their booster doses at the earliest.
At least six jab centres run by the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC), including the Matri Sadan hospital in EE Block, the Duttabad primary healthcare centre and the Matri Sadan hospital in Deshbandhunagar in Rajarhat, are administering the booster dose.
The response at these centres, however, has been lukewarm, the official said.
“We are administering the booster doses to people aged 60 and above free of cost. On average, only four or five are coming to the centres, leading to wastage of doses,” said the official.
On Monday, West Bengal reported 1,132 new Covid cases. Over 200 cases were reported from areas under the BMC.
The official said they can only request those above 60 to get their booster doses because the Union health ministry’s guidelines say that state governments can administer doses to senior citizens and only frontline or healthcare workers among the below-60 population.
“We cannot ask those below 60 to come to our centres as it is not allowed,” said the official. “We will give out slips or tokens to those willing to get the booster or any of the doses at our centres.”