West Bengal goes past 5 crore jab milestone, last 1 crore shots given in just 18 days

KOLKATA: Bengal on Saturday went past the five-crore jab mark, the last crore coming in record 18 days. More than 12.33 lakh shots were administered during the day and data was still being uploaded till late night. The highest single-day achievement for the state is 12.9 lakh doses on August 31.
“We have reached another milestone by crossing 5 crore vaccinations and ensuring at least one dose to 50% of the state’s eligible population,” said director of health services Ajay Chakraborty.
With 48 lakh doses of vials in the state’s kitty on Saturday morning, health officials activated 4,859 vaccination sites, setting a target of about 15 lakh doses for the day.
“By 2pm, we had crossed the 5-crore mark. This time, we gave 1 crore doses in record 18 days. The last crore took 29 days,” said Ashim Das Malakar, state family welfare officer.
The Centre had announced a quota of around 1.33 crore doses for Bengal for the month of September. So far 80 lakh plus jabs have already arrived. More than 40 lakh Covishield doses arrived this week alone, making this the biggest single consignment of vaccine to reach the state so far. Starting Thursday, three consignments of a total 21,25,816 doses reached the state over three consecutive days.
Health officials said the better supply in terms of regularity and quantity have facilitated raising the vaccination bar. In fact, 40 lakh jabs had been administered on the first eight days of this month..
“We need steady and adequate supply to set higher vaccination goals. We will keep ramping up the inoculation pace as and when we have a comfortable stock to jack up the drive,” said a senior health official.
In August, Bengal was to get 95 lakh doses but received a little over 1 crore by month-end. This month, too, health officials believe it could get more than the initial estimate of 1.3 crore doses.
Of the 4,859 vaccination sites that were pressed into action on Saturday 4532 were government vaccination centres.