Vax for 18-29 to start in district from tomorrow

Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and zilla parishad (ZP) will resume Covid-19 vaccination for 18-29 age group in the district from Wednesday. Also, the civic body has allowed 50% of total slots at all centres to be offline for 30-44 age group on Tuesday.
The Centre had on June 8 announced resumption of inoculation of 18-44 age group free of cost at government centres from June 21. The state had started vaccination of 30-44 group from June 19.
NMC chief medical officer Dr Sanjay Chilkar and additional district health officer of ZP Dr Asim Inamdar told TOI, “Government directive to start vaccination of 18-plus came in the evening on Monday. By that time, vaccination sessions of all centres for Tuesday had been planned. If the planning was to be changed, all online appointments would also have to be cancelled. To avoid this, the government has allowed us to start vaccination of 18-29 age group from Wednesday.”
The central government had allowed vaccination of 18-plus from May 1. But the responsibility of procuring the doses and inoculation was put on the states. Maharashtra government had started vaccination on May 1, but stopped it on May 12 citing vaccine shortage.
Four private hospitals in the city — Kingsway, New Era, HCG Cancer and Wockhardt — have procured Covishield doses from Pune’s Serum Institute of India and started paid vaccination of 18-plus.
Director of Kingsway Hospital Amit Somani said, “The hospital has received 10,000 doses of Covishield on Monday. Therefore, we could continue the vaccination without break. On Monday, 599 people took the jab.”
In the last 17 days, total 13,588 people, of which 13,375 were from 18-44 age group, have taken the jab at Kingsway Hospital.
Wockhardt Hospital did inoculation of 294, revealed NMC’s data on Monday. As per the civic body’s data, vaccination did not happen at New Era Hospital and HCG Cancer Hospital on Monday.
Vaccination of 30-plus happened at 266 government centres on Monday of which 106 were in the city and 160 in rural areas. Total 20,424 took the jab of which 15,179 were from 30-44 age group.
NMC additional municipal commissioner Ram Joshi said, “Government has directed us to also provide slots offline for 30-44 age group. Therefore, 50% of total slots at all centres will be online and the rest for offline.”
This is likely to cause crowding at the centres. There was reportedly no crowding till now as the vaccination was carried out only after online appointment for 30-44 years age group.
TOI on Monday reported about Care Hospital likely to start administering Russian vaccine Sputnik V in next 8-10 days.
Alexis Hospital’s deputy director (administration) Dr Nilesh Agrawal said, “Our hospital plans to start administering Sputnik V from June 29. We have also requested Dr Reddy’s Laboratories to provide storage facility as this vaccine needs to be kept at minus 18 degree Celsius. Price would be Rs1,145 per dose as fixed by the government. Second dose will start 21 days after the first one. Component of the first and second doses are different in Sputnik V.”