Bengal receives 1.5 lakh Covaxin doses, another 1.7 lakh to arrive on Tuesday

 Sources in the health department said on Monday around 40,000 doses were handed to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation

An official of the CMC said they would resume administering Covaxin on Tuesday.: Shutterstock

Kinsuk Basu And Subhajoy Roy   |   TT  |  Calcutta   |  27.07.21  :  Bengal on Monday received around 1.5 lakh doses of Covaxin and got an assurance from the Centre that another 1.7 lakh doses would arrive on Tuesday, paving the way for administering the second jab to Covaxin recipients in Calcutta.

Sources in the health department said on Monday around 40,000 doses of Covaxin were handed to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC).

An official of the CMC said they would resume administering Covaxin on Tuesday. The civic body was forced to stop administering the vaccine, manufactured by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, as it had run out of stock. The state health department, too, had run out of Covaxin doses.

“We received 1.5 lakh doses of Covaxin today and the Centre assured us that another 1.7 lakh would be sent tomorrow. Priority will be given to those who took their first dose of Covaxin more than 42 days, or six weeks, ago,” said an official of Swasthya Bhavan. “Once we start receiving more doses, more and more second dose recipients will be covered.”

The second dose of Covaxin is to be administered four to six weeks after the first.

As the state government had run out Covaxin doses, a large number of second dose recipients were clueless when they would get the jab.

“We require 2.5 lakh Covaxin doses to administer the shot to all those who are waiting for their second jab,” an official in the state health department said.

The official said that apart from Calcutta, Covaxin doses were sent to some of the districts adjoining Calcutta, including North and South 24-Parganas, and Howrah.

The supply of Covishield, manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, is likely to remain steady for the rest of the month. “Around 18 lakh doses of Covishield are expected to arrive by July 31. As of Sunday evening, the state health department had about 8.5 lakh Covishield doses,” the official said.

“The supply of Covishield has improved this month. We will be able to scale up vaccination with the arrival of the Covishield and Covaxin doses.”