Several private hospitals in Kolkata said they would start procuring Covid vaccine doses to administer booster jabs and vaccinate children between 15 and 18 years once the Centre issued a guideline.
The Bengal health department has asked the hospitals to wait for a meeting between the state and the Centre for clarity on which vaccines to be procured for the new drive.
The hospitals said they had adequate Covishield doses to administer booster shots to their healthcare staff, including doctors.
“We are waiting for the Centre’s guideline on whether the same vaccine that was administered as first and second doses could be administered as the booster. Once clarity is there, we’ll start procuring fresh doses,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO of Belle Vue Clinic.
The hospital has 6,800 doses of Covishield, which it is planning to administer as a booster to around 2,000 healthcare workers.
“As soon as the government approves Covaxin for the 15-18 age group, we will be placing orders for 30,000 doses of Covaxin,” said Tondon.
Belle Vue Clinic is now vaccinating 30 to 40 people daily. A few months back the count stood at 1,000.
Almost all private hospitals in the city have stopped placing fresh orders for vaccines, particularly Covaxin, because of low demands.
The Prime Minister’s announcement on Saturday - regarding boosters and making the 15-18 age group eligible for the Covid shot - has prompted most of them to plan procurement of fresh doses.
“We have 10,000 doses of Covishield. Out of this, we need around 6,000 to administer booster shots to our healthcare workers at all our units in the city. We plan to procure another 5,000 doses of Covishield for booster doses of frontline workers, senior citizens and for people who have not taken their second doses,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health, which runs several hospitals in and around Kolkata, including the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences.
“For children between 15 and 18, we plan to order 5,000 doses of Covaxin.”
He said the group was awaiting the guideline from the government for clarity on the details.
The RN Tagore hospital is now vaccinating around 200 doses every day. Of the three sites, the hospital is now using only one because of low demand. Officials said the other two sites would be reopened if there was a surge in demand.
Peerless Hospital has more than 12,000 doses of Covishield and 390 doses of Covaxin.
“We will start administering booster doses and vaccinating the 15-18 age group with the existing stocks. However, this week we will start procuring fresh doses so that the drive doesn’t stop midway,” said Sudipta Mitra, chief executive of the hospital.
