BMC plans to vaccinate 1.25 lakh health workers

As per reports, around 2,500 officers of Mumbai’s civic body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is to split into 500 teams of five each and are to take up the task of vaccinating 1.25 lakh healthcare workers in Mumbai early next year.

On Friday, December 11, the COVID-19 task force in the city convened its first physical meeting at the BMC headquarters in order to come up with a detailed blueprint of the largescale immunisation. Moreover, Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani with regards to the vaccine has stated that if enough doses are made available, the civic body plans to complete administering the first of the two vaccine shots to the 1.25 lakh healthcare workers in a span of 15 to 20 days.

Meanwhile, hospitals like KEM, Sion, Nair, Dr R N Cooper, Rajawadi, Kurla Bhabha, Jogeshwari Trauma and Bandra Babha are to serve as the eight points where the vaccine will be administered to healthcare workers in the first phase. The four medical colleges in KEM, Sion, Nair and Dr RN Cooper hospitals can store 1.5 to 2 lakh vaccine doses.

Earlier, the BMC had informed that it is to set up 48 distribution centres across the city in order to administer the vaccine for the coronavirus to a population over 1.24 crores once it is available. According to civic officials, there will be two to three vaccination centres in each of the 24 administrative wards of the city. However, the plan for the final distribution will be decided after the Centre lays guidelines for the same. In addition, the number of distribution centres will also go up once private institutions are also permitted for vaccine distribution, as per the BMC officials.