Just as the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) today issued a notice informing its Covishield centres will remain closed tomorrow due to a stock crunch, a large consignment of covid vaccines arrived at the city airport this evening that was further handed over to the state health department.

Kolkata has been reeling under vaccine crisis as the civic body had to keep its 102 urban primary health centres (UPHCs) and 50 megacentres that administer Covishield, closed for three consecutive days, last week. It was only after vaccines reached city by Sunday that the civic body decided to administer Covishield doses on Monday but alerted that such centres will again remain shut from Tuesday 10 August.

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However, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation today issued a notice informing that Covishield will be administered on 10 August but centres will once again remain closed from Wednesday, 11 August, till further notice. It attributed the reason to lack of supply from the Government of India. The Covaxin centres would remain functional though.

Just as the announcement was made in the afternoon, stocks of vaccines arrived at Kolkata airport in evening. The airport authorities informed that their team has successfully facilitated the movement of another set of Covid vaccines as 32 boxes reached Kolkata from Pune in an Air Asia flight.

Further, two more boxes arrived from Hyderabad on an IndiGo flight. The vaccines were handed over to the state health officials and were subsequently taken to the Baghbazar storage facility. Sources said the consignment comprised Covishield vaccines. More than 3 lakh doses of the vaccine came in from Pune.

A Kolkata Municipal Corporation official said that the stocks arriving off late are inadequate and is allowing the civic body to administer Covishield just for a day. However, it is learnt that after the arrival of today’s consignment, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation may be able to administer some Covishield tomorrow.

It may be noted that the present blow to the vaccination process by Kolkata Municipal Corporation was chiefly because Covishield doses are administered more than Covaxin. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has only 39 Covaxin centres and the rest administer Covishield.