Mumbai: ‘Centres can’t give the second dose to health workers due to app glitch’, says BMC official

An RPF personnel gets a shot at Nair Hospital on Monday. Pic/Ashish Raje

Six private hospitals started their vaccination centres, but only 50 per cent of their daily combined target of 600 people was met. Only 155 people took their first dose and 147 their second dose at these centres on Monday.

The BMC was still struggling with the CoWIN app to administer a second dose to health workers. Only 2,764 received the second dose on Monday.

As of now, there are 31 centres in the city, including six private hospitals. The maximum capacity of vaccinations is concentrated in four BMC centres - Nair, KEM, and SevenHills hospitals and BKC jumbo centre with a target of 4,700 doses per day. While three of them are receiving a good response, SevenHills is lagging probably due to inconvenience in travelling. SevenHills has a capacity to vaccinate 1,200 people a day, but could give COVID-19 shots to only 371 on Monday.

Overall, 10,556 people got vaccinated on Monday, out of which 7,792 got their first dose. Of 7,792 recipients, 6,706 were frontline workers - mostly BMC employees. Even though more and more BMC employees are coming forward to take their shots, the daily target has still not been achieved.

Around 1.6 lakh healthcare workers and 1.9 lakh frontline workers are registered for COVID-19 vaccination. Of these, 1,00,524 health workers have got their first dose and 7,819 their second dose. And, 71,482 frontline workers have taken the first shot so far. A BMC official said the centres can vaccinate more people, but can't give the second dose due to technical errors in the CoWIN app.