Lack of vaccines to delay universal vaccination drive in Bengal: Official

The West Bengal government could not start its universal vaccination programme - aimed at inoculating people in the 18-45 age group free of cost - due to paucity of jabs, a senior health department official said.The state will continue to give priority to the groups it has identified as superspreaders and increase the number of daily vaccination depending on supply, he said.We were unable to launch the universal vaccination programme from today because of shortage of vaccines.

The West Bengal government could not start its universal vaccination programme - aimed at inoculating people in the 18-45 age group free of cost - due to paucity of jabs, a senior health department official said.

The state will continue to give priority to the groups it has identified as ''superspreaders'' and increase the number of daily vaccination depending on supply, he said.

''We were unable to launch the universal vaccination programme from today because of shortage of vaccines. The ongoing vaccination process will continue. Our first target is to cover the priority groups,'' the official said.

The West Bengal government had identified bus conductors, drivers, hawkers and vegetable vendors as ''superspreaders'', and said focus would be to inoculate them, their family members and close relatives.

''We will take stock of the supply and decide upon the future course of action... At present, we can vaccinate close to three lakh people per day, but have the capacity to augment it to five lakh daily shots,'' the official added.

The central government on Monday kickstarted the universal vaccination programme to supply states free vaccines for the 18-45 age category.

Till Sunday, around 1.9 crore people had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine in West Bengal, according to official data. Out of this number, 42,74,276 beneficiaries have been fully inoculated with two doses.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)