Six centres, including Aundh hospital, to provide Covaxin

Pune/Mumbai: Six vaccination centres in the state will administer Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin to roughly 6,000-9,000 beneficiaries once the drive kicks off on Saturday.
The six are four medical colleges and two hospitals. The two are district hospitals in Pune (Aundh) and Amravati. The four medical colleges are in Solapur, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Mumbai (Grant medical college and J J Hospital).
The number of vaccination centres was further reduced to 291 from 358 on Thursday since the state had doses for just 55.5% of its nearly 8 lakh registered beneficiaries. The initial plan was to have 511 centres at the launch phase.
Overall, of the 291 centres in the state, 285 will administer the Serum Institute of India’s Covishield, while the remaining six will give Covaxin.
The state has received 9.63 lakh doses of Covishield and 20,000 doses of Covaxin. Officials said six sites have been allocated 2,000 doses of Covaxin each, all expected to reach by Friday.
N Ramaswami, commissioner, National Health Mission, said the Centre will share more details about the terms and conditions of administering Covaxin on Friday. The state’s head of immunisation Dr DN Patil said written consent would be sought from Covaxin beneficiaries at vaccination centres. The Bharat Biotech vaccine has been granted emergency approval under a ‘clinical trial mode’, which means consent of beneficiaries would be necessary and they will be followed up after vaccination.
However, there was little clarity on what kind of protection would be provided to beneficiaries should they suffer any adverse events. Covaxin has been mired in controversy with the drug regulator granting it an approval before completion of Phase III trials.
A senior doctor said, “It’s a Catch-22 for healthcare workers. Since we are not offered any choice of vaccine, would those apprehensive about taking Covaxin get no vaccine at all? The state must answer this.”
Dr Patil said Covaxin was administered mostly in medical colleges for better management of adverse events. A senior state official said the Centre has assured them the vaccine was safe.
In another development, the Centre has told the state to prepare two centres for a live interaction with PM on the day of vaccine launch. While previously Jalna district hospital was chosen, now Pune district hospital has been chosen. Ramaswami said the PM may want to communicate with centres getting both types of vaccine. According to the revised plan, Mumbai will now have 40 vaccination centres, down from 50 and initial plans of 75. Pune will have the second highest number (31), Thane will have 23, while Nashik and Nagpur will have 13 and 12 each. At least 25 districts will have between 2-9 vaccination centres.
Health minister Rajesh Tope said the state has received 9.8 lakh doses, and the remaining should be despatched by the Centre in the next 8-10 days. As per the state’s calculation, the required number of doses is 16 lakh for 8 lakh workers and another 1.5 lakh doses in case of damage.