Amid dearth of vaccines, Bengal to use half of supply for second jab

In the wake of the scarcity of Covid-19 vaccines, the West Bengal health department on Tuesday decided to utilise 50 per cent of the upcoming supply of doses to inoculate people scheduled to get the second jab, a senior official said. He said that till Monday, there were around 8.44 crore people in West Bengal who were yet to get the second dose.

"In this context, we have decided to use 50 per cent of the vaccines which are supposed to be delivered to the state for the second dose. This formula may continue till further order," he said

There are around six lakh doses in the central store of the state health department now, the official said.


"Presently, the state has the capacity to vaccinate at least 5 lakh people daily, which can be stretchable to 7-8 lakh subject to the availability of vaccines. We expect to get 4 lakh doses by tomorrow evening. But that is also inadequate, considering the present level of around 3 lakh vaccination daily," he added.

In West Bengal, 2.17 crore doses have been administered till Tuesday through more than 2 lakh sessions in the government and the private sector, he said.

"The vaccine utilisation is one of the best in the country and the net wastage is in the negative," the official said.

The state has given due priority to the elderly and vulnerable population and was able to make a perfect proportion of vaccination under different age brackets, he said.

"Among those vaccinated, 63.39 lakh people were in the age group of 18-44 years, 82.56 lakh in the 45-60 years age group and 71.11 lakh people are above 60 years of age," he said.

Altogether 2,76,378 people were vaccinated in the state on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the states Covid-19 death toll rose to 17,679 with 35 more fatalities, while 1,595 fresh cases of infection took the tally to 14,98,305, the health department said.

Since Monday, 2,024 recoveries were registered, taking the discharge rate to 97.41 per cent.

The number of active cases is 21,116, the department said in a bulletin.

In the last 24 hours, at least 53,166 samples were tested in the state.