KMC to provide both 1st & 2nd jab at health centres from today

KOLKATA: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will provide both first dose and second dose of vaccine from its urban primary health centres and mega centres across the city from Friday.

"Our priority will be to provide the second dose jab. As there is a specific time gap between first and second vaccine dose, we want to ensure that all citizens are inoculated within this time gap. Since, we have received assurance regarding availability of vaccine; we will also provide the first dose on Friday and Saturday too. We have already received 20,000 doses and another 30,000 are scheduled to come as assured by the state Health department," Firhad Hakim, Chairman, Board of Administrators, KMC, said.

He added that the second dose would be given from 10 am to 1 pm and the first dose from 1 to 4 pm as per availability.

Covaxin jab is being administered from 40 centres while Covishield is being provided from 101 centres. Besides this, there are 49 mega centres from where the super-spreader category that includes transport workers and transgender persons etc are being inoculated. Vaccination in Kolkata that had crossed the 50,000 mark on three consecutive days — Thursday, Friday and Saturday last week. But it nosedived since Monday because of a short supply of the vaccine.

On Wednesday, only persons whose second doses were due received the jab. "In case of Covaxin, the demand is less so we have availability of both first and second dose but in case of Covishield the availability has been irregular," a senior official of KMC's Health department said.