Due to shortage of Covishield stock, the PMC had on Sunday decided to administer only Covaxin to those beneficiaries who are yet receive their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine. (File) The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Tuesday decided to make Covaxin available in 68 centres – 38 government hospitals and 30 private hospitals – across the city while Covishield has been limited to only 16 centres – four government hospitals and 12 private ones. Till now, only Covishield vaccine was available in the 85 vaccination centres across the city.
The decision has been taken to reserve Covishield for those residents who have been inoculated with it already and need it for the second dose. Due to shortage of Covishield stock, the PMC had on Sunday decided to administer only Covaxin to those beneficiaries who are yet receive their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
“Residents who had taken the first dose of Covishield were disturbed by reports that PMC has not received Covishield doses from the state government. However, we have decided to reserve the available Covishield stock to administer the second dose to beneficiaries,” said a civic officer, adding, “Those eligible for the second dose can get inoculated at the 16 centres having Covishield doses.”
Since the vaccination drive cannot be slowed down and an individual cannot get two doses of two different vaccines, Covaxin is being administered as the first dose to new beneficiaries.
“We are confident that we will get sufficient supply of both Covishield and Covaxin from the state government. The PMC is also trying to increase the number of centres to scale up the vaccination drive,” the officer said.
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The PMC has so far administered 1,73,268 doses since the launch of the vaccination drive on January 16. It scaled up vaccination from eight centres to 85 centres and has been able to inoculate as many as 15,000 beneficiaries per day.
The maximum beneficiaries are senior citizens with 77,385 having received their first dose so far. At least 40,466 healthcare workers have been administered the first dose while 15,001 of them have got the second dose. At least 26,291 frontline workers have received the first dose and 603 the second dose. The PMC has been able to administer the first dose to 13,522 patients with comorbidities above 45 years of age.