KOLKATA: The vaccinating pace is picking up a reasonably good speed in Bengal. More than 40 lakh doses have been administered in the first eight days of September. With regular supply of vaccine, health officials are hopeful of keeping up the inoculation momentum. In the past eight days, the state has been administering 5 lakh-plus doses per day.
With close to 13 lakh doses being administered in a single day on the last day of August, the cumulative vaccination for the month clocked 1.2-crore plus doses.
The August 31 inoculation drive has been the single day highest performance in Bengal so far.
Even as such a feat has not been achieved after that, there have been days when six to seven lakh doses have been administered.
“Currently, we are administering above 5 lakh doses a day. Even if we target between five lakh and six lakh doses per day, September performance will be much better than that of August. It, however, will depend on how regular the supply is and the quantity,” said a senior health official.
On Thursday, when the drive began for the day, the state had 33.6 lakh doses in its possession. Officials said given this stock, it will not be difficult to vaccinate five to six lakh persons a day. Bengal has been assured of around 1.3 crore-plus doses for September.
“So far, we have got 42.5 lakh doses for September. We should be getting about 90 lakh more this month. The next consignment of 10 lakh is expected to arrive on Sunday,” said Ashim Das Malakar, state family welfare officer.
Till reports came in last on Thursday, a cumulative of 4.6 crore-plus doses have been administered across the state, of which 3.3 crore-plus was the first doses, bringing it close to 50% of the eligible population having got at least one dose of the vaccine.
“It is good that the inoculation drive is gaining momentum. If we keep administering 5-6 lakh doses daily by mid-November, we would have the eligible adult population in the state covered by at least one dose,” said IPGMER surgery professor Diptendra Sarkar.
In Kolkata, 62 lakh-plus jabs have been administered, of which 43 lakh-plus doses are first dose. Therefore, sources said, about 95% of Kolkatans have got at least the first jab.
“In comparison to serpentine queues in front of government CVCs, the private ones are mostly empty. We can escalate inoculation drive further if we find out ways so that private CVCs too could go back to vaccinating at the pace they were doing before,” said a senior Swasthya Bhawan official.
