West Bengal targets 1 crore more Covid jabs in next 10 days

KOLKATA: Bengal has administered a little above 33 lakh doses of Covid vaccine in the past three days despite the torrential rain that has flooded large parts of the state. Going by this rate, health officials are confident of vaccinating one crore more people in the next 10 days if vaccine supply continues to be regular and in adequate quantity. In such a case, around 65% of the eligible population are expected to be covered by at least one dose before the Durga Puja and the state might complete vaccinating its eligible population of seven crore people with both the doses by December.
“We could administer around 33 lakh jabs in three days despite the relentless rain. So, we hope to cover one crore more people in 10 days.

To complete full vaccination of the seven crore eligible people in Bengal, we need two to three months and sufficient doses of vaccine in hand. We have already administered more than 5 crore doses and the remaining 9 crore doses will require three months. Now let us see how steady the supply of vaccine doses is in the days to come,” said Bengal director health services Ajay Chakraborty.
Bengal has about seven crore people above 18 years of age who are eligible to take the anti-Covid jab. Altogether about 14 crore doses have to be administered as each recipient has to be administered two doses for complete vaccination.
However, a section of health officials felt achieving the full-vaccination target by December could be a little ambitious.
“No doubt we should be close to 100% vaccination by December if the doses keep arriving on regular basis and also in good quantity. But it could take as long as February or March to cover the entire eligible population as we will still have some people trickling in for their second dose at later dates,” said a Swasthya Bhawan health official.
With the supply of vaccine doses regularizing, both in terms of quantity and frequency, health officials have also stepped up the inoculation drive since the beginning of this month. In the first 18 days, one crore jabs were administered. Despite the downpour and flooding on Tuesday, over 11 lakh vaccine doses were administered from 4,387 centres across the state, making Bengal the best performer of the day, followed by UP in the second spot with about 10 lakh doses. On Wednesday, too, Bengal inched towards 6 lakh doses.
The state got a fresh supply of 14 lakh vaccine doses on Wednesday evening. “We had 25 lakh doses on Wednesday morning. Because of better stock in our hand, we could allow districts to expand the inoculation drives there. How we step up our inoculation drive will depended on the interval and quantum of vaccine supply. But we should be able to go steady with about 6 lakh doses a day on an average for now,” said state family welfare officer Ashim Das Malakar.