Challenges and Concerns in Setup of COVID Vaccination Centre: Experience from 2 Centres in Mumbai

Abstract

Since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic and Lockdown on March 2020 till date, measures like hand hygiene, social distancing and testing have worked only partially to contain the cases and deaths. Cooper Hospital, Mumbai, was one of the 10 nodal centres identified by Prime Minister’s Office in January 2021 to launch the Nationwide Vaccination drive, along with other public hospitals in Mumbai. We aim to highlight the challenges of vaccination setup and procedures in initial phases and discuss concerns/effect on our department workforce and workplan. We reviewed the patterns, procedures and problems faced by our vaccination centre from January 15th till March 15th (2 months). We also looked into setup at another centre in Mumbai. Over 37,000 vaccine doses have been administrated in our center alone by March end, and issues were analysed in detail with special reference to logistics & department work. Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI) were very few. We found that anxiety about side effects, concerns about choice of vaccine and long-term effects were the major impediments to vaccination. Although vaccination is not the final answer, it is an important tool to improve our response to the pandemic. Restructuring available infrastructure is essential in pandemic situations. Proper procedure, counselling and choice in the way forward in this crisis.

Conflict of Interest: None. All authors are employed with MCGM and working for this vaccination drive as part of their duties.