13,693 frontline health workers get COVID-19 vaccine

At least 13,693 frontline health workers received the Covishield vaccine on Tuesday at 200 centres in West Bengal, a senior health department official said. Eleven cases of Adverse event following Immunisation (AEFI) were reported, of which 10 cases were minor while only one person in Jhargram was undergoing treatment at the district hospital there, he said.

"At least 11 AEFI cases are reported today but most are minor like pain for the injection, reeling, nausea and other side effects. Most of them have been sent home after initial observation. Only one is undergoing treatment at the Jhargram DH while another was discharged from Jangipur SDH after initial treatment," he said.

The health condition of the 35-year-old nurse, undergoing treatment at the NRS Medical College and Hospital with AEFI, "is better today", the official said. "She is responding well to the treatment. All the necessary investigations were done and are found to be all right. In West Bengal the AEFI rate is still one in a thousand, which is normally expected and proves that the surveillance system is functioning well and no major side effects noticed after this 43,000 doses. This is a huge success and will help us in confidence building of Covid vaccination," Director of Health Services (DHS) Ajoy Chakraborty said.

The CoWIN software, prepared to monitor the inoculation process throughout the country, stopped functioning for around four hours on Tuesday, the official said. "The portal is working better now but the delayed SMS service is still hampering the optimal performance. It was completely non-operational from 3.30 pm to 7 pm today creating lots of trouble in session allocation," he said. The state will be receiving the second allotment of Covishield around 6.99 lakh doses on Wednesday, the official said.

Meanwhile, West Bengal on Tuesday registered 11 deaths taking the COVID-19 death toll to 10,074, the health department said. The tally went up to 5,66,073 with 412 fresh cases of the contagion. The discharge rate improved to 97.02 per cent with 513 recoveries pushing the total number of people recovering from the disease to 5,49,218.

North 24 Parganas accounted for four deaths while there were three fatalities in South 24 Parganas and one each in the city, Howrah, Hooghly and Uttar Dinajpur districts, it said. Of the 11 deaths, nine were due to the comorbidities where COVID-19 was incidental. Covid-19 claimed another doctor in West Bengal on Tuesday taking the total number of deaths of medical practitioners to 92, a senior official of the state health department said.

Dr Jadav Chatterjee (64), Head of department of Anatomy and former principal of Kolkata Medical College and Hospital, died on Tuesday morning due to post covid complications, a health department official said. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee condoled the death of Dr Chatterjee and tweeted, "Saddened to hear about the death of Prof (Dr) JC Chattopadhyay, HoD Anatomy, Medical College Kolkata due to #COVID19.

He served the health department in various capacities since 1988, was a popular teacher & had many publications to his credit. My thoughts are with his family during this time." Veteran film actress Lily Chakraborty (79) tested positive for the Covid-19 following which she was put on home isolation. The actress was having fever since Saturday following which she underwent tests for the Covid-19, a health department official said.