The Bengal government has directed all districts to launch a special drive to give second doses of Covid-19 vaccine to over 25 lakh people who are yet to take their last jab though their due-date has long been met.

Experts continue to opine that completion of the process is important to stop further mutation of the virus as evidenced by the ongoing third wave.

As per the data available with the health department on Wednesday, there were over 25.72 lakh persons overdue for their second doses, among which over 5.14 lakh and over 20.58 lakh persons are overdue for Covaxin and Covishield, respectively.

“It is very important to complete the vaccination for both doses to stop the virus from mutating. The priority group should be those who are yet to be infected by the virus. Our target should be vaccinating all (adults) with both doses universally,” said Arun Singh, national advisor to the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram, and professor and head of the department of neonatology at AIIMS Jodhpur.

The target poses a challenge for health officials across Bengal as thousands of health staff have already gone out of service following Covid infection.

The state government has already published a list for each district with their targets of overdue second doses and in a recent meeting, top government officials said the task should be done as soon as possible.

Bengal reported 22,155 new cases on Wednesday.

“The overdue targets have become a headache for us for a long time and now have become all the more important. We had earlier taken several measures but could not bring down the numbers of people overdue for their second jab. Now all districts have been directed to take stern measures as soon as possible. It has become an urgent task for us amid the vaccination for adolescents, and booster doses for frontline and health workers,” said a state health department official.

As per statistics, there are four districts having an overdue target of over 2 lakhs in the state including Calcutta, North 24-Parganas, Malda and Murshidabad. The total overdue targets in Calcutta and North 24-Parganas are 2.71 lakh and 2.74 lakh, respectively.

The Bengal government has so far vaccinated 6.75 crore people with the first doses and 4.73 crore people with second doses.

After the recent directive, several districts have taken special measures to work through the backlogs as soon as possible.

East Burdwan district administration has started sending notices to 93,000-odd people whose second jab is overdue and have decided to hold a special drive on Friday to vaccinate only those defaulters.

“We are sending special notices to those whose second dose is overdue. We have a target to vaccinate all defaulters on Friday by organizing several camps. Those who do not respond to our notices, we will go to their doorsteps,” said Kajal Kumar Roy, additional district magistrate (zila parishad) of East Burdwan.

Bankura reportedly has a lakh overdue doses so far and officials have started calling up those people to get them vaccinated.

“We have already taken measures to reduce the number of those overdue,” said K. Radhika Aiyar, the Bankura district magistrate.

Several health officials in south Bengal districts said they had found that many had taken their second jabs using different mobile numbers or documents.

“There are many migrant workers and people who visited the district during the assembly polls who took first dose of vaccine here but they went back to their place of work in other states and took the second dose there by using another mobile number,” said and health official.

Health officials in districts said the ongoing vaccination scenario was causing a strain on health staff, who are already under duress owing to on-the-job third wave infections.

“Every day, hundreds of health staff, doctors and nurses are getting infected by Covid. Amid such a situation, it has become a challenge for us to put in additional human resources for vaccinations,” said a health official in Birbhum.