Mumbai resumes Covid vaccination today after 2-day suspension, Centre sends 1.30 lakh doses

In Mumbai, free vaccination drives have been facing constant hurdles due to short supply of vaccines. (Picture courtesy: IE)

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will resume its vaccination drive at state- and municipal corporation-run centres today after it received a fresh batch of doses from the Centre. The civic body had to suspend inoculation drives at government-run centres on Friday and Saturday after it ran out of vaccine stock. As per procedure, the civic body does not hold vaccination drives on Sundays.

The civic body received a batch of over 1.30 lakh vaccine doses — 85,000 Covishield manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and 40,000 of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, officials told The Indian Express. Suresh Kakaki, the civic body’s Additional Municipal Commissioner, said it would activate all its centres to cover more people. He added that they were expecting more stocks to arrive on Monday that would help them smoothly continue the inoculation drive.

The civic body is running vaccination centres at 300 locations. These centres allow 50 per cent walk-ins and the other half through online appointments. Civic officials said pregnant women would also be able to get the jab at their nearest vaccination centre from Monday at their nearest vaccination centre. The Centre has recently allowed pregnant women to be vaccinated.

In Mumbai, free vaccination drives have been facing constant hurdles due to short supply of vaccines. State- and civic-run centres had to shut the vaccination drive on July 8 as well due to shortage of jabs. On Sunday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Centre for the shortage of Covid-19 vaccines. He said the number of ministers in the Union Cabinet had gone up, but vaccines were still facing short supply. India has set an ambitious target to vaccinate the entire population by December, but the absence or shortage of Covid-19 vaccines has been a constant thorn in its attempts.