The city of Mumbai is set to add more centres to administer Covaxin with the state receiving fresh stocks of 6.89 lakh doses of the Bharat Biotech vaccine from the Centre.
The city’s only Covaxin centre at JJ Hospital in Byculla has already seen an uptick in demand since the publication of efficacy data and is anticipating registrations to rise further.
BMC executive health officer Dr Mangala Gomare said the state has promised additional doses of Covaxin this week. “We are thinking of adding more centres in the suburbs,” she said. Some upcoming vaccination centres may be assigned to give Covaxin and the existing ones may be asked to add sessions.
Last week, the ICMR and Bharat Biotech revealed that Covaxin demonstrated 81% efficacy in preventing Covid-19 in the interim findings of the phase III trial.
On Tuesday, Lancet, which had published the phase II findings, said the vaccine was safe and immunogenic with no serious side effects.
The CDSCO’s subject expert committee on Wednesday recommended doing away with the ‘clinical trial mode’ for its use and making it a case of regular emergency use authorisation.
Dr Lalit Sankhe, nodal officer at JJ’s Covaxin centre said that they had started with a lukewarm response of 30-40 people in January. “At present, we are vaccinating 500 people daily. It is an overwhelming number given that we have to take consent from people and explain post-vaccination effects, among others,” he said.
The hospital has administered nearly 4,000 doses to date.
Surjitt Sahani
