Mumbai, Jan 15 (PTI) Vaccination of healthcare workers for COVID-19 will be carried out in Maharashtra four days a week so that health services at hospitals are not hampered due to their absence, an official said on Friday.

The inoculation drive is set to begin from Saturday with healthcare workers being the beneficiaries in the first phase.

"The vaccination drive will be carried out for four days a week (after the launch on Saturday)," said a senior health department official.

"Majority of the health staff in the state comprises of nurses and others having similar skill sets. Hence we need to manage their availability as well as their duty hours before sending them SMS for inoculation," he said.

All beneficiaries will be getting text message before they are vaccinated.

Asked when the state is expected to receive a second lot of vaccine doses, he said the state government will inform the Centre about the number of health workers it needs to vaccinate but it is up to the Centre to sanction vaccine supply.

Maharashtra has received 9.83 lakh vaccine doses so far.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)