A vaccination camp on the IIEST campus, which was shut down because of vaccine shortage, will resume on Friday for four days to ensure that the Covaxin recipients get their second dose on time.

The stop-start nature of the camp on the Shibpur campus shows how the vaccination drive has moved everywhere in Bengal because of erratic supply of doses.

The Telegraph had reported on July 2 that the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST) suspended the Covid vaccination camp it had been running since late April because of non-availability of doses from the office of the chief medical officer of health (CMOH), Howrah.

Since the suspension of the camp left the institute in a lurch, Bivore Das, an assistant registrar, met the district magistrate and CMOH on Tuesday with a plea for the resumption of the camp.

An official of the institute said: “We have been allowed to resume the camp with a rider that only a second dose of Covaxin will be available....”

A notice signed by Debabrata Majumder, the professor in charge of the institute’s hospital, on July 15 says: “The second dose vaccination with Covaxin for 200 beneficiaries (who got first dose vaccine from the Institute Hospital, IIEST, Shibpur on June 10) will be held on 16th July, 2021 from 11am onward at Pandya hall of residence.”

Majumder told The Telegraph that 844 people would be administered Covaxin on July 16, 17, 19 and 22.

An official of the district health office said the scarcity of supply was prompting them to focus on providing only the second dose of Covaxin.

“Since the supply is irregular the first dose cannot be provided. Those who had taken the first dose of Covishield at the IIEST camp, will be completing 84 days gap from the end of this month. We hope to cover them as well,” he said.