Prayagraj gets 80K Covid doses, vaccination drive resumes at all centres

PRAYAGRAJ, April 11 (HS): Commencing from Sunday, the Prayagraj district health department will hold a ‘Tika Utsav’ for the next four days (April 11 to April 14). Vaccination against the coronavirus will be resumed as part of the festival at all 97 vaccination centres located in the rural and urban areas. The district, which was running low on Covid-19 vaccine, received a new supply of 80,000 doses on Sunday morning.

“The fresh stock of the vaccine had landed at Varanasi airport on Saturday evening from where it was dispatched for different neighbouring districts like Prayagraj,” said Dr Tirath Lal, the district’s Covid-19 vaccines nodal officer. The vehicle carrying 80,000 doses of Covishield left Varanasi and arrives in Prayagraj on Sunday morning. The ‘festival’ kicked off on Sunday at all 97 vaccination centres in the district.”

The health department had conducted vaccinations on Saturday at five locations in the district,

Due to a shortage of vaccines in the district, the number of vaccination centres was reduced from the original 97 to the current 34. Vaccination was stopped at several rural-based primary health centres in the district for the past three days in order to monitor the use of available stock. It was only performed at Community health centres (CHC).

In March, vaccinations were started in 61 PHCs across the district to combat the Covid-19 outbreak. However, on Wednesday, these centres’ vaccinations were halted until further notice, and only the 20 CHCs were administering vaccines. On Saturday, the vaccination process was only held in five locations in the region, and each of these locations had a large crowd of residents who had come to get vaccinated. Due to the high demand, many centres’ vaccine supplies were depleted by noon, with only the second dose of the vaccine remaining.

“We have done micro-level arrangements for launching the vaccination festival from Sunday,” said the district vaccination nodal officer, “and it will be our commitment to see to it that more and more people are vaccinated during these four days.”