Vaccine ordeal as supply drops when demand surges

Elderly couple whose second dose is due after April 22 asked to queue up at 4am

A beneficiary receives the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine at a health centre in Calcutta:  PTI

Sanjay Mandal   |  TT  | Calcutta   |  22.04.21: Vaccination centres across Calcutta are struggling to cope with a rush of people, many of whom are elderly who are queueing up for hours to get the shot.

Long queues and people being turned away from vaccination centres are triggered by several reasons, officials said. Some of them are

⚫Uncertainty over the supply of doses, because of which vaccine centres are unable to calculate how many people can be given the shot on a particular day

⚫Fear of being unable to get vaccinated later if fresh supply fails to come

⚫Malfunctioning of the CoWin portal, where one has to register to get the jab.

Several hospitals had to suspend Covid vaccination for hours on Wednesday after running out of stock. Vaccination resumed at these centres in the afternoon but many potential recipients had to be turned away because of shortage of doses.

“Even around 15 days back, we were asking private hospitals and the Calcutta Municipal Corporation to organise awareness campaigns so that more people came forward to get vaccinated…. But the situation has changed completely in the last week following a steep surge in Covid cases. People are scared and are desperate to take the shot,” said Joly Chaudhuri, the joint secretary of the state urban development department.

“Added to the scare of Covid is the fear of vaccine shortage. So more and more people are queuing up at vaccination centres.”

Chaudhuri said 227 centres across Calcutta are vaccinating around 40,000 people daily. The state government’s target is to vaccinate at least 50,000 daily, provided there are enough doses.

Dover Lane residents Shyamal Mukherjee, 81, and wife Kamala, 75, are scheduled to take the second dose of Covishield after April 22. Their elder son had called up the private hospital in south Calcutta where his parents had taken the first dose to know when the second dose would be administered.

“An official of the hospital said they were not giving the second dose to more than 100 people a day and recipients were queuing up from 4am,” said their son.

Officials of several private hospitals said problems in the CoWin portal and uncertainty over supply made it impossible for them to tell in advance how many people could be vaccinated on a particular day.

“We are accepting appointments by phone calls. But every day at least 100 people are coming for walk-in registration. But we are not sure how many doses we will get,” said Pradip Tondon, the CEO of Belle Vue Clinic.

On April 18, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had written to the Prime Minister highlighting the inadequate supply. “Unfortunately for us, the supply of vaccines from the GOI (government of India) side has been scarce and erratic, which has been negatively affecting our vaccination programmes,” she had written in the letter.

The erratic supply is also affecting distribution of doses, said state government officials. On Wednesday, the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences had to suspend vaccination for about three hours.

“We had been advised to keep a limited stock of vaccines from the previous day to tide over the crisis the next morning. But there were so many recipients in the morning that we could not manage... and had to wait for fresh supply to come at noon,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health, which owns the Mukundapur hospital.

“On an average, over the past three days, we have been vaccinating around 425 people - around 150 first doses and 275 second doses. Because of limited availability, the second dose is being given priority. We had to counsel and send back around 50 to 60 people coming for the first dose,” Venkatesh said.

The shortage is also creating a waiting list for the second dose. “There is a daily backlog of more than 60 people for the second dose,” said Sudipta Mitra, the chief executive of Peerless Hospital.