As vaccination for all individuals above 45 years of age started across the country on April 1, Maharashtra reported record turnouts on the day, registering more than 3 lakh vaccinations. Mumbai crossed the 55,000 mark, the highest in a single day. The city registered more than 37,000 vaccinations in those aged 45 to 59 years.

Principal health secretary Dr Pradeep Vyas urged districts to prioritize immunization in areas witnessing a rise in cases. He advised field units to ascertain if they wanted to cover wards or villages sequentially or eligible groups in the shortest time. He further directed the districts to use the recent vaccine consignment of 26.77 lakh doses in a period of 5-7 days by increasing daily vaccination numbers to 4 lakh.

There was great enthusiasm among the 45 plus individuals across vaccination centres. A queue had started building up at the Nesco jumbo centre at 8 am and by noon, the centre had vaccinated more than 2,100. Residents from Goregaon, Ashok Yadav, Mithilesh Pandey and Nandkumar Shetty, said that they had been waiting to get vaccinated, especially since the surge. 

Vile Parle resident Prasanna Kamath said that he could have taken the vaccine dose 10 days back as he had a comorbidity, but his wife Shweta, who is 45 years of age, qualified only after the relaxation. Sangeeta Biswas, aged 54, who is a teacher from Goregaon, and her neighbor Gia Pereira, aged 50, also received their vaccination. She said that everyone has to return to their regular work routine and vaccine is the only way out. Jyotika Kanuga, 45, stated that the relaxation should have been introduced earlier. Dean of Nesco vaccination centre, Dr Neelam Andrade, stated that walk-ins had increased over the last 10 days.

BMC data suggest that 55,870 beneficiaries took the jab on Thursday. The figure includes 37,563 beneficiaries aged above 45, 10,576 senior citizens, 5,423 frontline workers and 2,308 health workers. Mumbai has administered 12.08 lakh vaccine doses thus far, including 1.54 lakh second doses. Mumbai has around 40 lakh people in the targeted age groups. Dr Mangala Gomare, BMC’s executive health officer, stated that they were hoping to reach 1 lakh vaccinations in the coming days. 

Maharashtra has administered 65 lakh doses so far. Dr Balakrishna Adsul, dean of SevenHills Hospital, said that a big turnout is expected on Friday.

Source: ET Healthworld