Vax shortage, OTP verification hamper vaccination drive

Prayagraj: The shortage of vaccines and the 'time-consuming' OTP verification process for the spot registration is hampering the Covid-19 vaccination drive in Sangam city. Health officials associated with the vaccination exercise claimed that apart from facing a shortage of vaccines at all vaccination sites, the OTP verification exercise for the on-the-spot registration process is proving to be a time-consuming process, which also includes completing formalities on the CoWin portal. All these factors have hampered the vaccination work to a major extent.
As a result, many recipients of all age groups had to return without jabs for the past two days. Dr Utsav Singh, in charge of vaccination at MLN Medical College, told TOI, "Due to the shortage of vaccine, we are not taking up the first dose of vaccination of 45 plus age of recipients. He further added, "The OTP verification exercise for the on-spot registration formality which consumes quite some time has also hampered the vaccination exercise to a major extent."
Those who took the first dose in the first week of April, are arriving for their second dose and jabs are being administered to them. The number of recipients is increasing per day in all centres since recipients who took their first jab in march last week, are also approaching the vaccination sites for the second dose which is pushing up the number of beneficiaries.
"It takes on average 15 minutes per recipient to complete formalities on the portal including OTP verification,” said Dr Singh. "Time duration for the verification increases if the recipient is not carrying or forgets to get their mobile phones while visiting the centre,” he added.
However, there has been an online facility for the registration of recipients for the age group between 18-44 years. He also said, “We are currently vaccinating 1,000-1,200 recipients per day at the MLN Medical college compared to 1,400 earlier." There were many instances when recipients forgot to carry their mobile phones with them and it consumes a lot of time to complete all formalities on the portal.
Sangam city has now seen the number of recipients fall below 10,000 for the past four days. This is a steep fall considering that the number of recipients, not long ago, was touching 20,000 recipients a day.
On Friday, Covid vaccination sites across the city and rural areas witnessed a heavy rush of eligible recipients to get a shot. As the vaccination exercise resumed on Thursday after a gap of two days at 44 vaccination sites, a large number of recipients thronged the vaccination centres, spotted standing in long queues, waiting for their turn.
The shortage of vaccines has already suspended the cluster plan in Sangam city which was supposed to begin on July 1.
Officials of the health department, however, said that the vaccination exercise was taken up at all the city-based (24) vaccination sites and 20 Community Health Centres (CHCs) in rural areas on Thursday.
District Immunization Officer (DIO) and Additional chief medical officer (ACMO), Dr Teerath Lal told TOI that the vaccination exercise was taken up as per the availability of vaccines. He added that jabs were administered to eligible recipients at 44 sites on Friday.