The state government is expected to receive 45 lakh Covid vaccine doses between now and the end of July, a senior official of the health department said on Wednesday.

The vaccine manufacturers have informed the department about the supply schedule. The supply would consist of 37 lakh Covishield and 8 lakh Covaxin doses, said the official. However, there was no clarity when private hospitals would get fresh stocks for which they have paid manufacturers last week.

The state received 3.5 lakh doses on Wednesday and would get another 5 lakh doses on Thursday.

An official in the health department said that the 45 lakh doses for the rest of the month would enable the state to vaccinate about 3 lakh people on an average every day. The fresh supply is also likely to boost the vaccination from centres run by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC).

“We have received a schedule of supply for the rest of the month from the manufacturers of Covishield and Covaxin. We will receive 45 lakh doses by July 31. We were supposed to get 48 lakh doses for the rest of July but 3 lakh doses will arrive on August 2, though this will be considered as the supply for the month of July,” said Asim Das Malakar, the state family welfare officer.

Bengal had managed to vaccinate 5 lakh people a day earlier but could not sustain the pace because of vaccine shortage, said a health department official.

According to Co-Win, Bengal administered 2,24,930 doses on Tuesday and 2,03,052 doses on Monday. The state had vaccinated 3,90,838 people on June 25.

Officials of the department said that the state had received about 25 lakh doses in the first half of July and the increased supply would mean more vaccinations on an average every day.

For the last fortnight, the Covid vaccination in Calcutta and across the state has been very erratic because of the inconsistent supply of vaccines.

The CMC’s clinics vaccinated varying numbers of people on various days. In the week before last, the CMC’s clinics vaccinated only 50 people on a couple of days because of the shortage of doses. Some of the clinics that had vaccinated about 300 people in April are now vaccinating only 100 or 150 people in a day.

“Every day there is a ruckus outside some CMC clinic. There are people queuing up since early morning to get vaccinated. Sometimes there are 250 people in a queue but only 150 vaccine doses to administer,” said a senior doctor of the CMC.

The CMC had targeted vaccinating 50,000 people a day, a feat it has achieved earlier. But in the last two weeks, it has barely managed to vaccinate about 30,000 people from all its 190 centres.

The CMC’s clinics are prioritising second dose vaccinations. The second doses are being administered between 10am and 1pm and the first doses are administered between 1pm and 4pm.

The CMC staff in the vaccination centres are asking people to form two queues, one for first dose and another for second dose, so that they can distribute the coupons that recipients have to carry to get vaccinated among both first and second dose recipients.