'Dearth of vaccines prevented all in city get inoculated'

Kolkata: On a day when vaccination in Kolkata crossed 64,500-mark, Chairman of Board of Administrators, Kolkata Municipal Corporation Firhad Hakim rued that vaccination of Kolkata citizens would have been completed by now if the supply of vaccine from Centre had been adequate.

The Kolkata figure includes all centres in the city including the government and private hospitals.

The report released by the Health department revealed that there was zero death in Kolkata due to Covid after a gap of over 3.5 months.

"We have a robust infrastructure for vaccination with which KMC alone can inoculate 1 lakh people per day. But as the supply from the centre is much less than our requisition we have been able to offer the jab to 70 percent of the people of Kolkata," Hakim said.

According to the Chairman of Board of Administrators, KMC alone wants to offer jab to 50,000 people daily but the average daily figure is around 25,000 -30,000 because of dearth in supply.

Hakim however admitted that vaccination among the residents of slums in the city have been less.

"Many of them have received the jab as super spreaders and frontline workers. The vaccination of 45 plus has been more or less complete. We will take up awareness among the slum dwellers so that those who are left out come forward to take the jab," he added.

Total vaccination doses in Kolkata is over 39.79 lakhs with over 30 lakhs getting the first dose and over 9.76 lakhs getting both the doses.