With no vaccination camps in the city for a week, difficulty in getting a slot for the Russia-made Sputnik vaccine frustrates residents
Coimbatore: Difficulty in getting slots for the Russian-made vaccine Sputnik which has been made available in only a few of the city's hospitals has further disappointed an already irate public reeling under the lack of Covaxin and Covishield vaccine stock.
The Russia-made Sputnik vaccine is reportedly effective against all the new variants of the Coronavirus. Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd. is marketing Sputnik V in India.
The Coimbatore district administration has not conducted any vaccination camp for a week now, thereby disappointing people who were eager to get their jabs against Covid-19. While lack of vaccine stock has become a regular scenario in the district, it is expected that more than several thousand vaccine vials are to be received by the district administration soon.
Besides this, many people in the district are eager to vaccinate themselves against Covid-19 with Sputnik, a Russian-made vaccine which is said to have high efficiency and less interval gap between the two doses. But the limited availability of the Sputnik vaccine in the city's hospitals is making it difficult for public to get a slot.
Santhoshini, a resident of Coimbatore took to Twitter to express her feeling after being administered the first dose of Sputnik and opined that she had no side effects. But unlike her, many others complained that they did not even get a chance to book a slot for Sputnik.
Manivannan opined that though he had the time to book for a slot, he did not do so since the scheduled time to get the jab was not convenient for him. He regrets not having booked a slot earlier since no slots were available since then, when he tried to book again. People say that getting a slot on the CoWIN app is difficult since slots get closed in minutes. The State government had directed hospitals to ensure slots were pre-booked for administering Sputnik.
SimpliCity spoke to a few hospital sources who clarified that people kept calling them to book a slot as they could not get one on CoWin. With the slots being opened between 6-7 anytime, it was discovered that many have been waiting for a week now without getting a slot for Sputnik. Four private hospitals in the district have bagged the opportunity to administer Sputnik vaccine for the public to fight against Covid-19.