The Calcutta Municipal Corporation will vaccinate bedridden persons by visiting their homes considering their cases as special, Firhad Hakim, the chairperson of the corporation’s board of administrators, said on Saturday.

Hakim made it clear that the services will be extended as special cases only to those who have no other way to get vaccinated. No one else in the family of the person will be administered the jab at home.

The family members of the bedridden people have to visit the nearest primary health centre of the CMC to register.

Around late afternoon, after vaccination at the centres winds up and when a vial has only one or two doses left, the vaccinators will visit the ailing person’s home to administer the jab. Hakim said that the CMC does not want to waste vaccine doses by carrying a new vial to the home.

Civic officials managing Covid vaccination said each vial of Covishield and Covaxin has 10 doses but efficient drawing from the vials allows 11 people to be vaccinated from one vial.

“We have decided to visit the homes of those who are bedridden and for whom it would not be possible to visit any vaccination centre to take the Covid vaccine. But these people are exposed to getting infected as nurses, physiotherapists or other caregivers come to tend to them every day,” Hakim said on Saturday.

“We will treat them as special cases and vaccinate them by visiting their homes. I have spoken to the health secretary about this. Please do not think this to be a case of taking vaccination to people’s doors. This is a rare exemption for those who need it. We will not vaccinate anyone else in their families who can visit a vaccination centre,” he said.

The Covid vaccination guidelines do not permit vaccination at people’s homes, said CMC officials, while pointing out that only very rare special exemptions will be offered to those who are immobile.

A senior doctor of the CMC said that the services will be offered only to those who cannot be brought to the Covid vaccination centres of the CMC even in an ambulance or on a stretcher. “There have been some instances where our vaccinators went to the gate of the centre and administered vaccines to the elderly who sat inside cars. Our vaccinators will visit the homes of only those who cannot even come to the gate of the centre in a car,” said the doctor.

Covaxin second doses

Hakim said on Saturday that some of the dedicated vaccination centres opened only for the Covid shots would administer Covaxin second doses from Tuesday. These centres had administered some Covaxin first doses earlier and many of those recipients are now waiting for their second doses.

This facility will be separate from the administration of Covaxin second doses from select primary health centres of the CMC.