This story is from January 15, 2021

Maha to cut vaccination sites to 285 for inaugural day

Maha to cut vaccination sites to 285 for inaugural day
Pune: The Centre has directed health officials in Maharashtra to scale down the number of its vaccination sites to 285 from the 358 announced earlier.
State immunisation officer Dr D N Patil told TOI that the Centre late on Wednesday asked the state to revise its plan. “This is for the inaugural day (January 16). The number of sites can be scaled up in the coming days,” he said, adding that the Centre gave no reasons for the need to cut the number.
Of the 285 sites, Mumbai will have the maximum (40) followed by Pune (31) and Thane (23).
The lowest number of vaccination sites is at Hingoli (2), Gondia, Akola, Sindhudurg and Bhandara (3 each).
Patil said 100 beneficiaries will be covered at each site as per the guidelines of the vaccination programme. “We expect 28,500 beneficiaries to be covered on the first day,” he said.
Commissioner (family welfare) N Ramaswami told TOI that the respective districts have been intimated about the vaccination sites. “We have received all 9.8 lakh vaccine doses — 9.63 lakh from Serum Institute of India and 20,000 from Bharat Biotech, which have been distributed,” he said.
The Centre has scaled down the number of vaccination sites across the country to around 3,000 from the 5,000 planned initially. Asked about the reduction, NIIT Aayog member Dr Vinod Paul said the vaccination programme would be started with the 3,000 sites before being scaled up to 5,000 or even more if needed.

Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope said the state has received 9.8 lakh doses and the remaining should be dispatched 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. “As of now, we have reserved two doses each for 4.9 lakh health workers. The remaining health workers will be inoculated when we get the remaining doses,” he told TOI.
Tope said the Centre has also asked states to select the days for the vaccination programme so that it does not affect routine work.
4 med colleges, 2 hosps in state to use Covaxin
Four government medical colleges and two district hospitals in Maharashtra will administer the Covaxin vaccine from Bharat Biotech under the vaccination programme. The four medical colleges are in Solapur, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Mumbai (Grant medical college and J J Hospital). The two district hospitals are in Pune (Aundh) and Amravati.
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