KOLKATA: Close to 1 lakh children, aged between 12 and 14 years, took their first dose of Covid vaccine—Corbevax—at 700 vaccination centres across Bengal on Monday, the first day the inoculation drive for the age group was launched. Health officials hoped the programme would gain momentum in the next couple of days as the state activated more session sites. No adverse events following immunization was reported.
“Around 1 lakh doses were administered on the day of the inoculation launch. Hopefully the drive would get a better pace in the next few days,” said state family welfare officer Ashim Das Malakar.
In Kolkata, the vaccine was administered from 34 Covid vaccination centres (CVC)s under KMC, 20 schools and the five medical colleges. Though the hospitals and civic-run vaccination centres reported low footfall, health officials hope for an increased count as words spread. “We recorded a lukewarm response from students. We hope the vaccination drive for the children will gather pace from the latter half of the week,” a civic official said.
Each vial of Corbevax contains 20 doses. As a result, many youngsters, who visited KMC-run centres for vaccine, were told to wait for more recipients to arrive to avoid wastage. “We hardly got 20 children at one go. So, we had to ask the children to wait till at least 15 more recipients turned up to minimize vaccine wastage,” said a KMC borough executive health officer.
At Medical College and Hospital, only five children had turned up. In absence of adequate numbers, the authorities sent those five home without their shots, but noted down the contact numbers, requesting the parents to bring them another day.
In districts, the drive was mostly launched at hospitals though the district administrations are preparing to start camps at schools. “We conducted the drive from only nine vaccination session sites in Murshidabad, administering about 700 doses. Preparations are on to activate more sites, especially at schools. Once that is done, the drive will gain better pace,” said Murshidabad CMOH Sandip Sanyal.
