The Covid vaccination centres run by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation had more doses than recipients on Monday, the first day of the new system that has reserved separate days for the first and second shots.
The civic body had announced last week that all its Covid vaccination centres would administer only second doses on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and first doses on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
The primary health centre at Ward 82 in Chetla, which has been among the most visited vaccination centres, received 500 doses on Monday. “But only 41 people turned up to get their second doses,” said a senior doctor of the KMC.
At Ahindra Mancha in Chetla, only 110 people turned up. “Till last week, between 1,200 and 1,400 people were being vaccinated at Ahindra Mancha every day,” the doctor said.
On average, all primary health centres — which are also working as Covid vaccination centres — received 150 doses on Monday, said civic doctors.
But in almost all centres, the number of recipients ranged between 50 and 70. “Till Friday, we did not have to think whether we had enough people to open a vial. Each vial can vaccinate 10 or 11 people and there would always be a long queue of people waiting for the shot. On Monday, we had to tell five or six recipients to wait for four or five more. This was done to prevent wastage,” said a KMC doctor.
Once a vial is opened, the unused doses cannot be taken back to the cold storage point and have to be discarded.
Monday’s poor turnout for the second dose at the KMC centres was reflected in a sharp drop in the daily vaccination numbers in Kolkata. CoWIN, an online platform for Covid vaccination-related matters in India, showed that only 18,231 people got vaccinated till 7.40pm on Monday in the city.
On Saturday, 43,717 people had received the shot in Kolkata. The counts for Friday and Thursday were 44,942 and 48,530, respectively.
The reason behind reserving separate days for the first and second doses was to put an end to the daily chaos outside the centres. The areas in front of the gates of the vaccination centres of the KMC used to be crowded till Friday.
Most of the centres had twice or thrice the number of people standing in the queue than the number of doses available with them.
“The new system was a success as there was no chaos outside the centres on Monday. But we are worried about the people whose second dose is due. They seem to have disappeared. Over the past one or two weeks, nearly 80 per cent of those coming to our centres were first-dose recipients,” said a KMC doctor.