Private vaccination centres in Mumbai will be closed from Saturday to Monday due to “insufficient supply” of coronavirus shots, the city’s civic body Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation announced on Friday evening.
In a notice, the BMC also asked private vaccination centres to cancel their sessions, if already scheduled, for the next three days and inform the beneficiaries accordingly. The civic body added that it was scheduled to receive some stocks of the vaccine by Friday night and will try to resume inoculation at private hospitals.
“Ninety-nine thousand doses of Covishield will reach Mumbai late Friday night and they will be distributed at the municipal and government centres on Saturday morning,” Additional Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai, Suresh Kakani said, according to NDTV.
On Saturday, vaccines will be given at state-run facilities between 12 noon and 6 pm, the BMC statement also noted. Centres that will vaccinate in two sessions on Saturday, the KEM Hospital, Nair Hospital, Rajawadi Hospital, Mahim Maternity Hospital and BKC Jumbo Covid Center, will continue the second session till 8 pm, NDTV reported. On Sunday, beneficiaries will receive the shots from 9 am to 5 pm.
Meanwhile, 86 out of 120 of the vaccination centres in the city, could not administer the shots on Friday, according to the Mumbai Mirror. These include the BKC Jumbo facility, which was the largest vaccination centre in Mumbai. Other major centres like Dahisar Jumbo vaccination centre, Sion hospital, Seven Hills hospital, Cooper hospital and Kasturba Hospital were also in the list.
Authorities in several parts of the country have flagged shortage of vaccines to the Centre over the course of the last week. At least seven states – Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Odisha and Telangana – are experiencing coronavirus vaccine shortages.
However, on Thursday, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan claimed that there was no shortage of vaccines in the country. He dismissed the concerns by several states, calling it “fear mongering”, and said that more than 4.3 crore shots were in stock. Then on Friday, he tweeted that the states complaining of vaccine shortages were merely raising a “hue and cry”. He repeated that more than 4.3 crore doses were in stock or nearing delivery.
India has administered over 9.56 crore shots so far, with more than 1.12 crore people having received both doses of the vaccine, according to official data.
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