KOLKATA: Senior citizens have started queuing up in large numbers at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Covid vaccination clinics (CVC) to get their booster shots. According to a KMC health department official, the civic body’s vaccination clinics were recording a surge in attendance of senior citizens who were averse to taking the booster dose.
According to data with KMC, number of booster doses shot up from 10-15 in first week of January to 95-100 doses by end of month. “Now we are in a comfortable position as senior citizens are queuing up in good numbers shedding the fear of infection,” said a KMC health department senior official.
According to a KMC medical officer in charge of a vaccination clinic in Tollygunge the number of the recipients grew from 40 in the second week of January to 100 in the last week of the month. “Even a couple of weeks ago we needed to send health workers to the neighbourhoods to invite senior citizens eligible for the booster dose,” the official said.
When the state had launched the precaution dose on January 10 the target was to give six lakh shots in January. “We have administered about nine lakh precaution doses so far against our target of six lakh. The drive started off mainly with healthcare and frontline workers. Now with more senior citizens becoming eligible for the booster shot we expect the drive to pick pace,” said state family welfare officer Ashim Das Malakar, in-charge of the inoculation drive in the state.
On Monday, Bengal had a stock of about 70 lakh doses.
Some private CVCs are also seeing a slight rise in senior citizens’ footfall. “This time many senior citizens also got infected. We have told them to wait for three months. We hope footfall to pick up once eligibility criteria is extended to other age groups,” said Sudipa Mitra, CEO, Peerless Hospital.
