West Bengal gears up to vaccinate 48 lakh kids – Times of India

KOLKATA: The state has started preparing for the rollout of vaccination for the 12-14 age group which is expected to begin on March 16.
Bengal has stocked up 31 lakh doses of Corbevax that will be used in this second phase inoculation drive for paediatric population. Health officials said the number of children in this age group in Bengal is between 45 lakh and 48 lakh.

The health department officials involved in the inoculation drive have been asked to attend a virtual meet on the rollout with the Centre officials on Tuesday morning. This rollout comes after over two months of initiating the drive for children between 15 and 18 years.
“We expect to receive the SOP for this drive after the Tuesday meeting, following which we will put our plans in place. We have 31 lakh doses of Corbevax,” said Ashim Das Malakar, state family welfare officer.
The state received the first consignment of Corbevax – 4.04 lakh doses – in February. Later, more shipments arrived.
Even as the nation-wide rollout date is tentatively March 16, sources hinted at a token drive from a few select government CVCs on the launch date, which would be expanded later.
“Since this is a new vaccine, we must consider many factors before a widespread rollout. Whether to go all out for state-wide drive from first day or concentrate on a few select CVCs,” said a senior health official.
Kids between 15 and 18 years of age are being inoculated with Bharat Biothech’s Covaxin that was already being used on the adult population. For the 12-14 age group the government will be using Biological E’s Corbevax. To be administered in two doses 28 days apart this is an indigenously developed receptor-binding domain (RBD) protein subunit Covid vaccine.
The drive will mostly be carried out from schools. For 15-18 age group some private hospitals had tied up with schools for conducting camps in the schools. But for this age group no private hospital is likely to get into this phase of paediatric vaccination drive as none have acquired Corbevax doses. “We do not have any kind of instruction from the government whether we should be part of this. Also, given the kind of vaccination pace in private CVCs we doubt if it will be viable for us to join the drive,” said CEO of a private hospital.
(Inputs from Suman Chakraborti)