Over 88,000 children aged between 12 and 14 received their first shot of the Corbevax vaccine across Bengal on Day 1 of the Covid vaccination drive for the group, state health department officials said.
On Monday, the first day of the drive, shots were administered from 356 centres set up in hospitals, urban primary health centres and block primary health centres across the state.
As many as 334 vaccination centres were set up in schools, 21 of them in Kolkata.
“We have decided to step up the publicity drive in all boroughs so parents in greater numbers come forth to get their children vaccinated,” said Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim.
The state has around 30 lakh children in the 12-14 age group. Sources in the state health department said Bengal had around 31 lakh doses of Corbevax before Monday’s rollout.
Two doses of Corbevax, manufactured by the Hyderabad-based Biological E, will be injected 28 days apart into the children aged between 12 and 14.
“We had not expected a great turnout on the first day,” said a health official in Jhargram, 175km southwest of Kolkata, where the day’s temperature crossed 36 degrees Celsius. “The rollout was organised in three of the blocks and each witnessed around 500 recipients.”
At many centres in North and South 24-Parganas districts, teachers from schools and madrasas accompanied the children to boost their confidence, health officials of the districts said.
At the camp organised on the premises of Chetla Girls High School in Kolkata, 55 children took their first jab.
Health department officials said the vaccination process got delayed at several centres where children turned up without registering on the CoWIN platform.
“Data entry operators had to check documents to ensure the children were aged between 12 and 14 before registering them for the shot. That delayed the process,” said an official.
Atin Ghosh, Kolkata 's deputy mayor and in charge of the civic health department, said the Centre should send Corbevax in vials containing five doses, instead of 20. “That will help reduce the time to vaccinate the children,” he said.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation has decided to reach out to government and government-aided schools to set up vaccination centres instead of waiting for them to appeal to the state government for setting up one, officials said.
“The idea is to increase the reach so that more and more children can be inoculated,” an official said.
In districts including Howrah, and North and South 24-Parganas, health officials have started talks with schools on setting up vaccination camps on their premises.
“Children will be more comfortable getting the jab in their schools, in the presence of their teachers, than visiting a vaccination centre,” an official in the health department said.
