Vaccine crunch: Many pvt hosps may have to shut off-site camps

kolkata: Due to inadequate supply of Covid vaccine doses, many private hospitals in the city may be forced to close their off-site camps. Some private hospitals have already exhausted their stock while many others are soon going to finish their existing stock.

It was learnt from the sources that a top private hospital has closed down its off-site vaccination site as it had exhausted all its vaccine stock. Another top private hospital in the city has rescheduled its off-site vaccination programme. According to sources, many other private hospitals are now trying to reduce the number of their off-site camps due to rising demand for vaccines.

"As there is not enough stock, we have to postpone most of the off-site camps till we get the new supply. We have placed our requisition for more than 35,000 doses for July but the consignment is yet to arrive," a senior official of a private hospital said.

A designated Covid hospital group will soon reduce the number of daily doses at their existing off-site camps. "We have been administering 1,200-1,400 doses at off-site centres but now we have to stop. We will not be able to administer vaccines at the off-site camps unless we receive new supply. Another private hospital has opted for a dual procurement system so that they can buy vaccines directly from the manufacturers other than placing an order on the Co-Win portal through the government channel.

"Now it takes longer to organize off-site camps since permission norms have got complicated. We have many other camps lined up but they cannot be made properly operational as there is a scarcity of vaccines," an official from a private hospital said.

State Health department manages to conduct around 2.5 to 3 lakh vaccination daily but still fails to meet its target of carrying out 5 lakh vaccination daily. State government has not been getting adequate supply of doses from the Centre as a result the state health department is still to achieve 5 lakh daily marks. State health department aims to increase the daily vaccination.

Meanwhile, the state Health department has already conducted over 2.41 crore vaccinations so far. Around 2,08,752 people had been vaccinated across the state on Saturday. On Friday the state had vaccinated 2,37,821 people across Bengal. Health department also conducted vaccination among 35,44,261 people belonging to the age bracket 18-44 so far. As many as 2,40,65,056 people have cumulatively received vaccines so far till Saturday.