Sameer Tufel Qureshi, a 25-year-old man wanted for multiple offences under the cow slaughter law in Uttar Pradesh and carrying a Rs 50,000 reward, was arrested in Thane, Maharashtra. He was apprehended with the help of a Special Task Force and local crime branch, and subsequently taken to UP for further action.
PUNE: On-the-spot vaccination of registered but unscheduled beneficiaries has drastically cut vaccine wastage in Maharashtra, with officials saying they have been able to completely use the day’s last-opened vials.
Each vaccine vial, containing about 10 doses, needs to be used within four hours of being opened. But vaccinators, during the three days before the walk-in policy was implemented, said doses from the day’s last vials were going waste because of low beneficiary turnout.
Observers said 285 session sites due to low turnouts had no choice but to discard doses after administering the first three to five doses from the last vial. They estimate that an average of 1,000 doses was being wasted every day. But that has reduced considerably, ever since site in-charges were allowed to utilise remaining doses by calling colleagues who have registered on CoWIN app. They have been allowed to do so if the day’s beneficiary count is low.
Every healthcare worker needs to be given two doses of the vaccine four weeks apart.
PUNE: The Covid vaccination drive in Maharashtra will be conducted every week at 511 vaccination centres on five fixed days - Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Archana Patil, director, health services told TOI on Friday. The decision will be effective from January 25.
“Since we have the required number of doses at our disposal, we can also increase the number of sessions at big hospitals and medical colleges,” Patil said. Currently, every centre can hold only one session covering 100 healthcare workers on a given day.
The decision to increase the centres and vaccination days was taken a day after the state received the remaining 8.7 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine needed to complete the first phase of vaccinating nearly 8 lakh healthcare workers in Maharashtra on Thursday. “We have now increased the number of centres and daily target of vaccinating healthcare workers from