For 2nd day in a row, Bengal crosses 3L-mark of daily vaccination

Kolkata: The state Health department on Saturday cumulatively administered around 3,30,008 doses—for two successive days now the state has crossed the three lakh-mark.

Over 47 lakh have been vaccinated in the age group 18-44 years since the drive began, around 106 lakh between 45-60 years and around 83.43 Lakh above 60 years.

Bengal has so far received 2.36 crore doses of Covid vaccine from the Centre while it has procured around 17.74 lakh doses.

Vaccination drives in the state have received a jolt as there has been an inadequate supply of doses from the centre. State government had to scale down the immunisation drive than its capacity only because of lack of supply.

Moreover, the health department was informed that it would be given around 75 lakh doses this month but it has so far received around 54 lakh doses so far including a consignment of 12 lakh doses which arrived in the city on Friday.

"We have the capacity of vaccinating more than one-and-a-half crore people per month without any further augmentation of infrastructure or human resources. Our only constraint is to get adequate quantities of doses in time to maintain uninterrupted supply," Director of Health Services Dr Ajay Chakraborty said on

Saturday.

"The Covaxin stock is very low, only around 1.0 lakh and the districts have a small quantity in their hands. State was supposed to receive 2.55 lakh doses as per the schedule but did not receive the entire amount.

The next consignment is scheduled to arrive July 26," Dr Chakraborty further added. He further said that the total vaccination as per the Co-WIN dashboard is 276.58 lakh, out of that 1st dose done on 195 lakh and 2nd dose on 81.9 lakh.

The health department fails to achieve its target of carrying out 5 lakh doses every day. Many private hospitals in the city have rescheduled its off-site vaccination programme due to short supply. Many other private hospitals are now trying to reduce the number of their off-site camps due to a want of a vaccine.

Around 2,796 Common vaccination centers (CVCs) have been set up across the state till Saturday. Around 2,163 AEFI cases have been reported across the state till date. Vaccine wastage percentage in the state stands at -7 per cent on Saturday. The wastage of vaccines in the state is minimal compared to the figures from various other states.