kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation is all set to change its vaccination scheduling of first and second dose from next week with people showing less interest in second doses of the vaccines.
KMC has already announced that from Monday onwards all urban primary health centres and mega centres of KMC will offer first doses of the vaccines from 10 am to 3pm, while second dose will be offered from 3 pm to 4 pm.
KMC in this ongoing week had scheduled second dose vaccination on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, while first dose shots were scheduled to be administered on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
"We have noticed that people have been turning up in less numbers for receiving second doses. So, we have gone back to the old pattern of first dose and second dose on all six days. However, the duration for administering the second dose will be for only one hour," a senior official of KMC's Health department said.
As per vaccination figures, on the days scheduled for second dose, the number of vaccine recipients was almost half than the recipients of the first dose on their scheduled days. However, over 1 lakh second doses are still due."The vaccination process is dynamic. This vaccination strategy has been taken up as a pilot basis for next week. We want to see whether it suits the citizens," Subrata Roy Chowdhury, Chief Municipal Officer of Health, KMC said.
Over 39 lakh people in the city have already received the first dose while the number of both dose recipients are nearly 14 lakh. Many people from the adjoining districts like South 24-Parganas, North 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly etc have also received the jab from KMC vaccine centres as the number of such centres in the city are much more in comparison to the districts.