VIJAYAWADA: Long queues were seen at Coronavirus Vaccination Centres (CVCs) across the state on Wednesday even as the Covid-19 cases surge across India.
Health authorities estimate the number of people taking the jab on Wednes-day could cross six lakh as against the targeted four lakh.
The state had received 6.4 lakh doses from the Central government.
The state government had on Tuesday announ-ced that as part of Tika Utsav announced by the Central government, it would set up over 1,400 vaccination centres at ward and village secretariats in the state. People aged over 45 and 60 years, apart from healthcare and frontline workers could take their first or second doses.
Local officials arranged tents, chairs and drinking water at various CVCs. People had to first register themselves on the CoWIN web portal before receiving their shot.
The health officials admit that the CoWIN portal had slowed down for some time unable to take heavy load in some parts of the state. This resulted in a delay in registrations by a few minutes.
People rushed to vaccinate themselves after learning that Covaxin, which believe was relatively safer — was being administered in the state.
This phenomenon was noticed in parts of Vijayawada, Jaggaiahpet and Nandigama.
The demand for Covaxin was such that its stocks soon exhausted at some of the centres. Local health authorities then mobilised stocks from other Covid vaccination centres. At some places, the authorities had to declare a lunch break until fresh stocks arrived.
Certain CVCs had issues with internet connectivity for accessing CoWIN portal. At such places, health authorities went ahead with the vaccination programme in offline mode.
Vizianagaram district medical and health officer Dr. S.V. Ramana Kumari said, “We faced difficulty in registering through CoWIN in agency areas for some time. So, we proceeded with registrations in offline mode to save time. However, we uploaded data once we got internet access.”
Certain districts like Vizianagaram, which had been allotted 35,000 doses of Covishield vaccine, exhausted their stocks soon. They had to wait for fresh stocks before continuing the vaccination programme.
AP health director Dr. T. Geetha Prasadini said, “We witnessed a large number of targeted beneficiaries throughout the state rushing to CVCs with their Aadhaar cards. They waited for their turn to get registered and vaccinated. Districts having leftover stocks of vaccine will continue the vaccination programme on Thursday too till the stocks exhaust and fresh stocks are received.”
