KMC sets up 34 new centres after new strain found in four

KOLKATA: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has increased the number of its Covid vaccination sites from 17 to 51, following the recent detection of UK's new COVID strain in four persons in the state. The decision has been taken to speed up the vaccination process in the city.

"We have set a target of inoculating 100 people from each of these vaccination centres. Around 4500 people are being inoculated on an average daily," a senior official of KMC's Health department said.

Firhad Hakim has instructed the health department to run vaccination centres even on Sundays.

Presently, vaccination of people aged above 60 and those above the age of 45 with co-morbidities is going on.

Last Saturday, three persons in the state were detected with the UK's new COVID-19 strain, one with the Brazilian variant of the coronavirus, prompting the administration to take strict precautionary measures, a senior official of the health department said.

The state Health department from Monday decided that passengers from abroad testing positive on arrival will be directly admitted to Beleghata ID Hospital.

Before this, fliers tested positive at the airport on arrival would be sent home with an advice for self isolation for two weeks. If their samples were found to be positive for any of the mutant strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, they would be admitted to the Beleghata-facility.

The policy-shift came after eight fliers, all from Dubai, tested positive on arrival and days later one of them was found to be carrying the South African-strain of the coronavirus — the first such occurrence in Bengal so far — and five others with the UK-strain. The health department admitted them to the ID Hospital only between Saturday and Sunday.