Private hospitals to help BMC widen vax coverage in slums – ET HealthWorld

MUMBAI: With BMC hamstrung by shortage of vaccine stocks, it has begun talks with private hospitals seeking help to widen Covid-19immunisation coverage. Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said they have held talks with 2-3 private hospitals who said they had adequate doses and expressed willingness to vaccinate slum-dwellers.

“We are still working out the modalities. We might gather information about those waiting to get vaccinated from ward offices and share it with those hospitals, or private hospitals could operate centres in the vicinity of slums,” said Kakani. He said even private hospitals don’t have a lot of doses, but some have a few thousand additional doses which they are willing to share under the CSR initiative.

The civic body could not hold drives for at least five days this month, while it had to cut it short on several other days due to shortage of doses.

The list of people who have become eligible for a second dose, but are unable to get it is growing longer.

The city has administered 67.25lakh doses so far, but only 16lakh people have been fully vaccinated. The city has an estimated adult population of 93lakh that is eligible for vaccination. On Saturday too, less than 70 of the city’s 309 centres could carry out vaccination. Kakani said that they have received 48,000 doses which will help resume the drive on Monday.

On Sunday, only private hospitals carried out vaccination, where 13,077 people received the jab. Across Maharashtra less than 1.12lakh people took the vaccine on Sunday. Some of the flood-hit districts like Ratnagiri didn’t see any vaccination.