KOLKATA:
Bengal on Saturday crossed 6 million vaccination doses to put up a valiant fight against a possible outbreak of the second wave of coronavirus.
Keeping in mind the rising number of infected patients, the health department wants to ramp up the vaccination drive to 5 lakh a day from the current average of 2.5 lakh a day. Bengal stands third in the nation's vaccination ladder.
On Saturday, inoculation was carried out from 2971 sites. Out of which 2800 were government and only 171 were private. The sites will be increased further to accelerate vaccination to the desired level, said a senior health department officer.
The doctors are harping on fast-track immunization to build herd immunity against the virus. From April 1, anyone above 45 with or without comorbidities can get vaccinated. Health experts are worrying that there can be a surge in infection in Bengal with large gatherings being very common during this assembly election, where Covid-19 guideline becomes the biggest casualty. The indefectibility of the new strains are much higher than the strain we have encountered, said a virologist.
The number of people having infection is hovering around 2000 in Bengal. Apart from the state government's proactive steps, several private hospitals in the city have increased their Covid beds because of a steady rise in the number of cases and an increasing percentage of people testing positive are being hospitalised.
Over the past week, hospitals have been converting non-Covid beds into Covid ones.
Vaccines reached Kolkata on January 12 and vaccination of frontline healthcare workers began on January 16. Now vaccination will continue without any respite all through the week, said an officer.
A number of hospitals in the city saw an unusual rush for Covid vaccine doses on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the first few days of vaccination for all people above 45. "We want to leverage this enthusiasm to maximise the inoculation. More the merrier as the second surge is getting prominent with every passing day," said an officer.